Twinning
by CampionSayn
Summary: "You take the left, I'll take the right. You'll be the Red Queen, I'll be the White." –Identical twins cannot stay that way forever; especially when coming from a legacy paved in blood and secrets.
1. Blue Silver

Title: Twinning.  
Disclaimer: I don't own Batman Beyond.  
Warnings: Some liberties are taken here, but that just makes it interesting.  
Summary: "You take the left, I'll take the right. You'll be the Red Queen, I'll be the White." –Identical twins cannot stay that way forever; especially when coming from a legacy paved in blood and secrets. A look into the point of view of everyone else as the Deeds' move on in different directions. These will be a collection of one-shots through various points in the lives of the twins and anyone they come to have in their lives.

These chapters will fall in and out of time as I see fit. Everyone else is doing it, why not I?

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**Blue Silver-:-**

The mushrooms and green onions were cooking pretty evenly in the pan. Once in a while, Deidre would have to move some of the thicker ones around via the long metal chopstick she used for these sorts of things. The grease used to boil the vegetables had already burnt the ends of her fingers and she was getting reasonably annoyed with all of this.

The roses in the vase behind her, so small being set on such a large dining table in such an empty house, gave a little rattle when she set the chopstick back down. The food would be done soon so she wouldn't need it for a while.

The kitchen she stood in, trying to cook for her only blood relatives, was actually fairly small, but the dining table was meant for a large family. It stood in the middle of the room like a reminder of something long ago. All faded wood with a black table cloth meant for restaurants and lovers in the woods and, of course, the yellow roses she'd bought for Nanna a week ago in the glass vase.

Absently, the bright eyed blond picked up the liqued seasoning for the vegetables and added more. When the cold liquid hit the food and the burning pan, some smoke rose into the air, but it didn't last more than a second and she was back to just looking at her surroundings. Waiting.

She had been in the house for the last couple of hours, trying to avoid thinking about the heist she and the others were supposed to commit that night. Her Nanna was out, picking up her own groceries with that rundown old car, so Deidre had decided to clean the place and cook some food for the old woman and maybe a little for her gang.

Giving a little shrug to loosen up her shoulders, Deidre turned from the food and walked around the house to stretch out her legs after standing in the same place for so long. Her feet were bare and made no noise, but if there was a safer place to be without wearing something to protect the soles of her feet, she didn't know where it was.

The house wasn't exactly large, but it wasn't small either. It had a living room, a small dining room in the same area as the kitchen, a second floor with Nanna's consistently locked door and two other bedrooms meant for Deidre and Delia. Though, of course, Delia hadn't actually stayed in the room for more than a year. There was also a trapdoor somewhere in the small laundry room that was nailed shut sometime during the twins' childhood. Nanna Harley said that there was nothing beyond the nailed wood besides piping and electric wires that she didn't want the girls getting into.

The tiled floor beneath her feet was cut off in the living room by a soft blue carpet and she took a seat on the old dark blue couch, hands setting into her lap and fiddled with the hem of the yellow apron she had put on for cooking over her one piece green dress with the white sleeves. The room was her favorite, even above her own. It was like a memory from her Nanna's life, no technology and several shelves nailed to the walls filled with hundreds upon hundreds of mercifully _paper_ books. Some of them were even older than Nanna and Deidre had spent her early years reading as many of them as she could reach, grateful for the Dewey Decimal System they were organized by.

It was a pity that Delia kept trying to convince Nanna to sell them all off, but then, Delia had never appreciated history.

Her big, silver blue eyes settled onto the clock hanging in the archway and her features seemed to sadden a little. It was almost time for her to leave, the little black arm of the hour hand trying to touch the rim of seven, and the minute hand with its tiny red heart set in a gem inside of it was steadily moving down for the six. She'd spent days waiting for the right time to go and see Nanna and now all that would happen was that she'd end up leaving her a cold plate of the still sizzling food, wrapped in foil and a little greeting card saying she had been in the house.

Oh well. At least she had proof that she'd actually been to see the old woman.


	2. 08:04:01 PM

Disclaimer: I don't own Batman Beyond.

Ghoul's POV this time, since out of all the Jokerz, he's probably the most insightful.

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_Just wait until I die. Then you'll have to think of yourself.  
-The Hours._

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08:04:01 PM-:-

The grey fingers that had been tapping incessantly at the keyboards that felt so like home and happiness suddenly paused. Each digit hovering above the keys they were about to attack and Ghoul looked up from his laptop. The door to the hideout had opened and he knew it was Deidre coming back from whatever she had been doing. And she had food for everyone but herself, as usual.

This was confirmed as Woof sat up from beside the grey skinned blonde, body shifting from the curled, circular position he had been sleeping in, and took a deep inhale of the air. Ghoul did a similar thing, though not nearly as noticeable. He just kept his head staring at the hallway the door led to or away from and breathed in the dusty air that ushered in through the opened and closed door. Aside from the usual smell the Gotham air presented with hints of smog and the pervasive sense of despair, there was the smell of still warm food. Possibly Chinese or Mongolian.

Woof stretched a little more and gave a great yawn, sharp teeth exposed, and blinked the sleep from his eyes just in time to see the smaller, younger of the twins step into the room and notice them with her big silver-blue eyes. Ghoul gave her his usual silent nod, Woof bounding over to help her with the small crate of what could only be the books she borrowed from her grandmother every time she went there and came back. Both consciously ignored the plastic sack filled with the foiled and clear sheen wrapped food in her other hand.

The tall, inked teen saved what he had been working on, blue schematics and red linings disappearing with the press of the 'Enter' key and with a snap, his laptop was placed onto the rickety, piece of trash coffee table and he stepped into the connecting kitchen/dining room with, well, he supposed they could be called friends. If any of them were polite about it. His lithe form went with such haunting grace, if a poet were in the room they would have said something about it, but being as it was just the three of them… Woof heaved the crate onto one of the sitting chairs—the low one, all brown with yellow paint smears and evidence of mice eating it—and Deidre—her long hair unconfined by her wig, her body free of her costume and the only one of them in the entire gang to look normal in a green and white dress—set down the bag and started separating clear wrapped food, all mostly certain purple and evergreen vegetables, from the foiled food. The foiled food was probably meat, if the way Woof eyed it was anything to go by.

"You did make some of this for yourself, right?" Ghoul asked, breaking the comfortable silence that always carried between the three of them, as opposed to the stagnant silences ripe with loathing and fear with Chucko or Delia or J-Man.

"I ate some at Nanna's," Deidre answered as she pulled some dishes for the boys out of the cupboards above the sink. She had that half smile on her lips again. The one Ghoul could identify and use to his advantage when she was dishonest.

"Liar," he grinned.

Taking his seat, Ghoul plucked one of the clear foiled packs off the counter and rolled it between his hands. The textures from the outside and inside seemed to convulse and his own eyes observed Woof take his own place on the chair on the other side of the counter—not the hard, tall silver one like Ghoul's, but the tall, barstool-like one made of red leather and black pipe—as he plucked one of the books Deidre had brought in out from between its brothers and looked over it. The hybrid always liked whatever books were lying around the hideout, none more so than the ones of the Deeds' grandmother.

Deidre turned back to them and set the two plates she had cleaned early in the morning yesterday onto the counter before the two of them.

"Well, I ate some. You can believe me or not, but I did eat…a little. Some of the meat."

Woof's ears perked up completely at the confirmation that there was meat in those packets, but he didn't look up from the yellowed pages in his hands. Once he found a book that he liked that Deidre had brought in, always something with meaning and not just some happy, one in four celebrated romance novels, it became very hard for him to tear himself away from it.

Ghoul's hands ceased their play with the clear sheen and Deidre's own tiny hands picked it up and sat it in front of her. He kept watching her body language as she found the tape almost invisible to him that sealed the food and kept it from falling out with little effort and started slowly pealing it open. Most of her body was lax, but he could tell that she had that look she did when she was disappointed. Her shoulders seemed drawn; she was sadder than usual.

The wrap was open and out came some vegetables with a sort of sauce that spoke of Asian cuisine spattered all over it. Deidre's hand clenched the bag so only half came out on one plate and half came out on the other, each deposit leaving the plates almost full and the wrap completely empty. She threw the clear sheen away and started opening the foil.

In spite of the wonderful smell that came from the silver wrapping, Woof was still immersed in the book pages, leaving Ghoul to lean forward in his seat and ask, moll prominent in its way and bold.

"Do I get to hear about your day, or do I get to hear a piece of the stories?"

As if by a trigger, her eyes seemed to light beautifully with something similar to eagerness to take away her sorrow as she separated the meat from the foil for her boys—and they were her boys in a way without possession—and placed the food, still wafting curled tendrils of aroma, before them and leaned on the edge of the counter herself. Relaxed.

The stories were something the twins' grandmother had been telling them ever since they were old enough to understand small words and had developed into something like an Odyssey. Only, it was more interesting to Ghoul and Woof than the actual Greek Odyssey. It had characters they could recognize and understand and a line of thought that was easy to follow. Ghoul had heard her reciting one of the shorter stories to herself when she thought she was alone, baking something to keep her mind off of things, and when she'd caught him staring at her, getting just to the end of a sentence about red ivy and a burned man, he'd asked her to finish. Occasionally he would ask for a pinch of the stories here and there and was content hours after she had given it.

By now, he had established and memorized the characters; Red, Balance, Professor, Lizard, Hatty, Enigma, The Night, the Knave, the Doll, Kitten, Redbreast and the Others. They didn't always go by the same name, but that was half the fun in figuring out what was going on. He could understand why Delia wouldn't or couldn't appreciate them.

He tried his best to ask her how her days were spent when she wasn't with their group, (off alone to get away from the mistreatment her sister had started bestowing on her a few months ago when Delia had started changing into something familiar and frightening to the younger twin) but when she couldn't answer truthfully without straining her words and Ghoul found he really didn't want to know, she gave him something fantastic to think about. Her favorite parts of the stories.

Her lips, unblemished from any slaps to the face or even a little lipstick, quirked up and she pulled some clean silverware from the drawers in the counter. She handed them each one (Woof finally putting down the book, dog eared upon its brothers) and Woof set to work devouring his portion, ears prim and upright when the first forkful fell into his mouth and made him just _so_ _happy_ Deidre had the ability to make some meals unlike the rest of them.

Ghoul just set his fork atop the food and waited for her answer. His brow, left uncovered seeing as his hat was left on the sofa until the heist scheduled to happen later that night, raised at her and he spoke up again while pushing some of the green vegetables around with his fork.

"Well?"

She smiled at him and spoke a sentence, teasing him into thinking he would get more, though he'd never get it after eating and her experiencing an obviously bad day. But, then, the sentences were really stories in themselves, the way she said them.

"In the absence of sanity on the streets, The Night asked the saddened Doll for guidance to the Knave, and despite her rage at a truth spoken through darkness by poisoned light and bones grinding jaw, she led the way without really knowing why."

Blond locks of hair swayed over his shoulders as Ghoul tilted his head to the side. This was an unfamiliar setting for the stories, but it was still something to think about. It made him happy and, swiftly, he skewered a piece of meat—may have been beef—and like the motion of a martial artist, made the food fit in between her open lips, left the food in her mouth, and pulled the silverware back out so he could eat some himself.

She looked surprised, Woof chuckled between his bits of meat and Ghoul chewed a piece of the green vegetables with a self-satisfied smirk.


	3. Poison Green

Disclaimer: I don't own Batman Beyond, the characters used or otherwise. I make no money from writing this, blah, blah, blah.

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**Poison Green-:-**

Tinted more-green-than-blue eyes opened like a window hampered by rust and glared as the sun awakened Delia from her comfortable sleep. No, actually it wasn't the sun, it was the flash bulb J-Man had left on earlier when he was too busy removing her clothes to flip the switch a second time on the way to the bed. She had delighted in it earlier, when they were tasting each other and swapping body fluids; it made the experience more surreal and got her revved up. Now the white-blue light had woke her up and it wasn't even eleven in the evening yet.

Stretching under the covers of the king-sized bed, her skin feeling tingly from the feel of the mattress and actually clean sheets, Delia yawned and brought herself up, covers falling away from her very naked self. She ran a hand through her greenish yellow hair, the knots resisting a little, and she smiled at the open door, smelling J-Man's heavy cigarettes and microwave food.

The evening had been fun. Better than two nights ago with raunchy exercise and two rounds of getting high off of each other. Now she just had to find her underwear and one of his sweat drenched shirts and she could go out into the living room and eat the food he was cooking.

Removing the covers from her body as a whole, breast puckering in the cool air of this cheap little dive of a condemned apartment J-Man called his place, Delia grinned at the cute creak the springs in the bed gave as she got off and bent over to grab her underwear that hung off the table the other Jokerz and J-Man generally used to cut and use drugs. She slipped them on and didn't bother looking for her bra, instead striding to the closet and grabbed a purple button-down shirt with only a few wrinkles.

Not bothering with the buttons, she slipped the shirt directly over her head and took a moment to breathe in the smell of the sleeves. She loved the smell J-Man gave off, not in any sort of romantic way, but because she imagined that this was what a man should smell like to her. Tobacco scented the cuffs of the sleeves, the arms smelled like the highway when riding on a motorcycle and the rest had the pungent smell of his cologne and sweat. Separate, but at the same time mixed up, leaving her feeling good every time she stole one of his clothes.

She passed over her other clothes on the floor and walked into the kitchen, ignoring and at a few points stepping over the other gang members that inhabited the entire complex since J-Man had found the place. Seeing as it was so late in the night, most were asleep from too much booze and such, but some of them woke with her stepping over them and gave a catcall or whistle her way. She repaid those ones a little sashay and sway of the hips before continuing on.

When she got to the kitchen she was greeted by the sight of a shirtless J-Man removing a pot of coffee out of the dispenser and filling two mugs with the scorching hot liquid. She stood in the doorway for a moment before speaking up.

"That for just you or can I convince you to give a little to a starving artist such as myself?"


	4. I Miss You

Disclaimer: I don't own Batman Beyond. Being able to use these characters is a privilege enough without getting paid. And more fun.

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**I Miss You-:-**

"Mr. Tetch?"

Turning from the window he had been staring through down at the street and the passersby, Jervis looked up at one of his maids. The one that bore a striking resemblance to his dead psychotherapist. She looked pleasant today for some odd reason; drying her hands with a dishtowel from the kitchen and not really looking at him, but towards the door to the foyer with as much of a smile as he'd ever seen on her face.

"You have a…visitor. She's got flowers for you. Should I see her in?"

Flowers? That was unusual. Most of the women that came to visit him came either with the manuscripts of their books they wanted him to look over, or with their briefcases filled with documents he needed to sign for his publishing house. This one might very well be interesting.

He tipped his grey head in a nod and his Leland look-alike was out the door, seeing the young woman, whoever she was, in from the front door.

He turned back to the window while she did that. Outside, the couple that had been going into the jewelry shop for the past couple weeks were hanging around the corner. Both were whispering sweet nothings every few seconds to the other with the exchange of kisses. Almost too sickeningly sweet for him to tolerate, but it was interesting to imagine them saying something else. This was better than television these days.

"Mr. Jervis?"

Hmm, he didn't hear any footsteps and was amused at the nervous, questioning tone of the obviously very young woman. She was either a college student or one of his new clerks. And she wasn't wearing heels or he would have heard the little clicks that came with walking into his library.

Lifting his head and tilting it to look at his visitor…he felt a jolt pulse through him that was not dangerous, and not unpleasant, but he certainly didn't think he could be seeing what—or who—he was seeing at that moment. His eyes nearly popped out of his head and he was glad that his Leland look-alike was already headed back to the kitchen to finish cooking his tasteless and disgusting soup, otherwise she would have asked the woman—girl, he noted absently—to leave in case he was about to drop dead.

A platinum blonde haired _goddess_ stood before him in an almost blood red turtleneck and black pencil skirt, holding a clear wrapped bushel of Periwinkle and what he thought may be Pansy. Her blue eyes stared at him shyly and—by God she looked familiar.

"…Hello," Jervis greeted finally, turning slightly in his seat to get a better look at her as she bowed her head at the sound of his still faintly accented voice, a tiny-tiny-tiny smile gracing her lips.

"I…I was told this was where you lived and I wanted to visit while I was passing by for the next couple days. You're Jervis Tetch, formerly of Gotham, yes? I didn't mix you up with someone else, did I?"

Her nervous question was met by a smile, "No. I used to live in Gotham, but that was long ago. Who, may I ask, told you about that place? For that matter, who are you, exactly?"

Feeling a little more confident, the blond young lady took a few steps forward and stopped beside the empty chair across from the elderly man, unsure whether to sit down or not. Her grip on the flowers, their petals quivering with the steps she had taken, tightened just the slightest as she bit her lip and answered.

"M-my name is Deidre Denis. You were a…friend of my grandmother…Harley."

Silence reigned for a good long moment. It swept over them in a sort of dramatic effect that comes with such a bombshell statement and neither knew how to break it. Jervis himself leaned a little back in his chair after another silent pause and motioned with one hand for the girl to sit in the chair, blinking at her with a small, unnoticeable head tilt.

Hmm. No wonder this girl looked so beautiful and so familiar when almost none of the women he knew were both at the same time. They were either familiar, like his publishers or clerks or his house staff, or they were beautiful like ladies in the old magazines or the book parties he was made to go to or just women on the street. A child of dear Harley was bound to be beautiful, he just didn't think one would look so like the jester.

Speaking, he leaned forward again, catching those gorgeous blue eyes as she chewed her bottom lip, "My, my, Harley certainly raised a fine brood to bring an old Rogue like myself flowers when none of us have heard from her in, oh, must be almost forty years."

"Forty-two, sir," Deidre corrected shyly, a lock of hair being swept back by her hand and behind her right ear with a sort of elegance Jervis could appreciate because he was a writer and writers notice and appreciate the little things.

"Forty-two? I must say that's a long time. How is the old girl these days?"

Silence. Cold and horrible silence came over the girl and Jervis felt… he knew, that that was the wrong thing, in a long list of wrong things, to say. His hands tightened on the old, stainless steel cane he had been leaning on since he'd sat down that day with that feeling and he saw, in that horrible way that people see what they don't want to see, she was trying not to cry. Her jaw was locked tight and there was a wetness lining her eyes. But no tears.

"She…she's dead sir."

His shoulders sank a little, "Oh. When did it happen?"

"Three months ago, sir. She wanted me to give these to you and a few of her other…friends…that are still alive, in the event of her death. Her last good-bye, really."

A sad, melancholy smile flitted across his wrinkled features and he set his cane against the small tea table beside him. She understood the motion and carefully handed him the flowers, where upon he took them gently, hands feeling the clear wrap and then one hand feeling one of the Periwinkles. He felt the ghost of a memory click around in his head at the touch. Periwinkle for friendship and Pansy for thought.

Absently, he plucked a little ivory colored card from inside between the petals and read that dainty, sweet handwriting that was definitely Harley's. What was written made his heart swell just a little.

'_Still thinking of you, my friend.-Love, Harley_.'


	5. It Ends

Disclaimer: Don't own any characters or anything pertaining to Batman Beyond. I make no money off of this.

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It Ends-:-

Pale blue eyes are glassed over completely now. All their life is gone from them, just as the rest of the life of the woman in the old chair, sitting with her back resting in the upright position, has gone forever.

She should have just given Delia the right answer. If she had, her throat wouldn't be sliced open and her blood wouldn't be painted on the walls in crude letters of tall, if not a little fat words spelling "Ha-Ha" over and over and over again. No, if she would have stopped being stubborn in that irritatingly noble way she had been throughout Delia's life, she would still be alive and would greet Deidre for the meal the little bitch would cook for her later.

But she had to be stupid.

Oh well…

That little _understanding_ smile is still on the old crone's lips and it makes Delia want to cut that mouth from ear to ear and pull the jaw right out of the skull. But, she has no time. Delia would just have to deal with it as she walked calmly into the kitchen, grabbed a ratty wet rag from off the sink's faucet, absently picks up one of the little fudge brownies from the top of the little castle of a pile that went undisturbed from her slamming the old woman through the house like a test control dummy, puts the treat between her lips and walks out the completely wide open front door.

The rag is to wipe the blood off of her hands, that's all. She doesn't wipe the knife she used for the cutting, she just tossed it into the dirty dishwater in the sink where it would dissolve what little of her fingerprints there were and thought little else of it.

The car she had borrowed from J-Man was still humming in the front drive, the trees above it shaking their leaves down on it, down on her. They seemed angry at her, branches seeping lower from their forever rigid positions and hoping to snatch and bat at her. The skies above seem angry at her as well. Loud noises of thunder shouting at her about the atrocity she had committed by killing the woman who raised her and weeping for the departed soul in that chair. And it all falls on deaf ears and blind eyes, because Delia just doesn't care. She's just chewing on the treat she snagged and tosses the blood dirty rag behind her, into one of the angry trees, and hops into the convertible car.

Her hands grip the stirring wheel and she makes the sound of an engine revving before turning the key and enjoying the real engine lighting up like a snarling lion at her command. She likes this car. It's not new, but it's clean and it's fast. Just the kind of ride that could make other girls melt and take any guy steering it up on an offer for dinner, a movie, and sex. Delia had slept with J-Man in it just the other night, but those thoughts died as she moved it into reverse and left the woods surrounding the old woman's property.

She never got a name. Not one name from that senile old gargoyle and that is why she lost her temper. All she had wanted was the real name of any member of who she supposed was her and her grandfather's common enemy. Old Guano Man, a Birdboy or two, maybe even Stupidman in his tin can circling the Earth like a gnat. But no. Not one damn name.

It would have made a fabulous addition to the coming out party she was going to have. A new look, a stronger gang, connections with those in the big leagues and an altogether feeling of success. Now she would have to do without it, she supposed. No big loss on her part, but dealing with Deidre after this was going to try her patience and it was in such short supply already with her little sister defying her as she had been lately. This new situation would be bothersome.

Her sister would find the body, probably get the police involved, plan the funeral and whatever that entailed, all the while crying like a lost lamb in winter and trying to find out who had done it. Obviously, she wouldn't suspect Delia, stupid as she was, trusting and compassionate and so like that dead woman it made Delia sick, but it was better than her being smart and trying to rebel. Delia still needed the emotional wreck for now, but if she had to, she could get rid of her easy enough.

She turned onto the highway and switched on the radio. The sounds of heavy metal rang out and she left it to itself, head bobbing once in a while as she ran a red light and sped through another intersection.


	6. Genetics

Disclaimer: I don't own Batman Beyond, I make no money writing this, blah, blah, blah.

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Genetics-:-

The computer screen, an uncomfortably bright light shining through the batcave and nearly blinding the back of his eyes, shows the information he requested and yet, Bruce still can't quite wrap his head around it.

Terry probably understands it even less, but he understands that this is really important to Bruce and doesn't say a word as the old man scrolls through the data, the wrinkles around his mouth turning in and out with his frowns. Forty-some years wondering what happened to the one that got away had come to a head at Barbara calling and telling him the news.

Harley Quinn was dead. In the morgue. Murdered.

Bruce didn't bother to look at Terry as the young man left him to himself to think about the events. Bruce acknowledges the sound of the grandfather clock opening and closing, but that's all and he is drawn back to the pictures Barbara sent. Some were of Harley, dead in the body bag with that jagged, horrible line across her throat. Some pictures showed the scene of the crime; a little house in tatters from Harley no doubt being thrown around rather like she had been when she was alive, her blood on the walls in words rather similar to Terry's father's crime scene. Mocking laughter written in liquid that took forever to come off. A couple pictures revealed the granddaughter that had called it in, seeming out of it and scared in one of the waiting room chairs at the police station, a coffee cup in her hands.

In another link attached to the pictures was a chatter of four DNA profiles. Harley's and the granddaughters; the one that had called it in, Deidre, and the one who hadn't answered the police's phone calls, Delia. And Joker's.

He hadn't been able to find Harley's first child's information, but it didn't matter.

The young girls' DNA was almost completely like Harley's, only with a few characteristics of Joker himself. From all the things in both the Clown Prince's blood and Harley's own, it made for interesting abilities in their offspring. They were immune to poison, to most diseases, they were fast healers (or at least he could assume they were), they were destined to have female offspring because of some defect from Harley's side of the genetic code, would almost certainly look like Harley when they reached maturity (as if they didn't already), as would any children they had, and actually seemed to be Harley's clones. Unfortunately, Joker's DNA was in there and he could see some problems developing in the elder twin, Delia. Ones that would produce pale skin, darker hair and, if it got bad, his homicidal mania.

Heaving back in his seat, Bruce rested his head against the chair's headrest and felt himself shudder a little bit in… something.

His chest hurt, but it wasn't from his medically diagnosed heart problems, it was from grief. Grief that he should not feel for Harley Quinn, but he did because—for God's sake—she, of all of his Rogues, did not deserve to die like that. Aside from maybe Selina, Harley was the good one. The kind one. The one that, as far as he could find, had never actually killed anyone herself and apologized even, for her actions and got the hell out of the shitty hole she had planted herself in because of Joker.

She got out and had a child—had grandchildren—and raised them all by herself. She did not deserve to die like that.

Ace got up from where he had been just staring at Bruce for the past hour and nosed his palm, a tiny whimper, like when he was a puppy, echoing around the cave. The softness of his fur and the wet leather feeling of his nose brought to mind hyena's he had paid for when no dognapping from the zoo had occurred in the weeks following Joker's death. They had died years ago, of course, but Bud and Lou had sired many puppies and there were still a couple of their great-great-grandchildren at the zoo, always in pairs, never practicing fratricide. Not like other hyenas—and there was that pain in his chest again. And sting in his eyes.

Patting Ace on the head, he rubs his eyes and they wander over to the picture of the granddaughter. If he aligned a picture of Harley right next to that picture of that little girl, it would probably be like looking at Harley even before he had met her the first time. She was pale, much too pale to be healthy, and that probably came from Joker and that thought made Bruce grit his teeth painfully. But…the first, and really only, Dark Knight noted that she was too timid looking and small and so obviously heart-broken and in shock to ever _be_ Joker.

He had Delia's records on file from Barbara sending them to him, like everything else, and thought… He had read them through and through and this ever-present fear had developed in him since then that Delia had more than enough potential to be the next Joker. Compared to the younger twin, Delia's record was longer than his arm and that was just for things while she was allied with the Jokerz gang. It got longer from when she was younger.

He was worried.


	7. Grief and Apology

Disclaimer: I don't own Batman Beyond or any of the characters used in this fic. I make no money from writing this.

Yes, I understand that I'm focusing a lot on Deidre, but that's because I'm trying to separate the good and evil twin in as subtle a way as I can and then make their differences as obvious as I can. In my head, Deidre is like Carrie from _Sex and the City_ with a hidden bit of Charlotte sprinkled in and Delia is…well, I like to think of her as Samantha from the same show, but with the morals and psychology of a Joker with breasts.

Any suggestions are received and considered.

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Grief and Apology-:-

The key from the safety deposit box clinks off the table as the chain around her graceful neck slithers out of her dress. The chain is long and silver as the key is short and an ugly bronze color that reflects the flashing club lights above Deidre's head and makes her look like a lock-key kid that had just been dumped out of a car that was still moving.

The tiny little table she's sitting at is near the back of the club, but there are still people dancing a little too close to her sulking, rather pathetic form, that once and a while look like they may come over and ask her to dance. Then, however, their dates grab them and they end up back in the middle of the dance floor, or worse, she gives them a warning glare made so very menacing by the tear streaks running down her cheeks and through the only make-up she actually wore, her rouge blush. In that case, they spun around and took their hormones to the next easy target and she is left to wallow in her own misery.

She hasn't gone to the deposit box yet; she doesn't think she's strong enough after the last forty-eight hours of talking to the cops and answering their judgmental questions after she gave them her grandmother's real name and not one of the alias' she's been using for over forty years or after watching the coroner put her Nanna in that cold leather body bag. She called Delia's cell at the police station and all she got was the voicemail. That was in the first five hours and she hadn't bothered to call her again.

Deidre knew, deep down in the pit of her stomach, why Harley had been killed. It was for keeping her secrets and others secrets, most of which she had given to the younger twin herself because (and here Deidre tries not to think about it, because then she'll think of all that blood and the broken glass and that knife in the sink) she knew she was going to die soon. She knew and all she did was tell Deidre _**everything**_ about her former life and make her swear not to use any of it against the people she protected for the better part of her wasted life. Or tell Delia.

Not telling Delia made sense and Deidre had felt no guilt by agreeing all those months ago.

Taking up her cup that she hadn't really touched in the last hour, she swallowed a mouthful of cheap, crappy coffee and tried to stuff down another wave of crying before she attracted even less favorable attention and beat someone to death.

She grabbed the fat-fat-fat, expensive style creamer that she had requested especially and dumped five tequila shots worth of it into the coffee before continuing to sip from the cup. It was a little better, but that horrible knot in her stomach tightened and she just let her head fall to the table. The feeling of it smashing on the wood took her mind off of the only really good thing in her life being dead for a split second and so she did it again. And again. And three times more.

"Hey, um, are you alright?"

Near ready to tear someone in half at this point, the tragically gorgeous blond lifted her head from the table and was met with two very familiar faces. One of a lovely, Asian and concerned young woman about Deidre's own age and the other nearly made her do a back flip over her chair and get the hell out of the club when his eyes—a handsome, clear blue, she noted absently—registered just who she was and the concern on his own face vanished like an autumn sun behind winter clouds.

The young lady had asked the question. She would answer the question and hope that they'd go away on their own. She was too tired and, right now, too guilty to get into a fight with…if she remembered correctly, the guy was called Terry McGinnis.

"Uh…yes. Fine, I'm fine. Just a rough couple of days. I'm fine."

The young lady didn't look so sure and took a seat on the other side of the table, scanning the remains of some very twisted and wet napkins with makeup stains blotted on them and Deidre herself, all stiff and avoiding both Dana's and Terry's eyes. She recognized the blond from somewhere, but she couldn't place it, considering she had never seen anyone look so miserable in a club before.

"You look very familiar, like I've seen you at school or something. Do we know each other?" Dana asked, delicately tilting her head curiously as Terry took his place near where she was sitting, deciding to stand for his own reasons. The brunette didn't seem to notice the young man's coldness and didn't feel the bristle of goosebumps up her arms like the crying girl at the look freezing blue eyes directed towards her.

Deidre opened her mouth to lie, a sort of defense mechanism that seemed to kick in every time she knew she was totally beyond screwed, but stopped as she—and Terry, she noted—took notice of the sudden quiet that was spreading along the dance floor.

Both the two that worked in the shadows turned up their heads and their eyes narrowed, for different reasons, though still narrowed all the same, at the sounds of sadistic and taunting laughter. The music that flew around in the club like a heartbeat continued all around it, but the laughter grew, along with little shrieks and shouts, until Deidre saw very familiar, though rather unwelcome faces head their way. All painted and smiling at the intended victims near the back, chains and spiked chickens and other such things held in their hands.

Dana edged over to Terry as one particular Joker made her way over. A young woman with dark hair, a pink and white dotted dress, white painted face like the rest and a large spiked rubber chicken came out from among the lesser enforcers and spoke to the three of them, ever confident.

"Evening pals and gals," Dot started, "We'd like to make an offer to your lovely group. Unload your creds and any jewelry ya' got on ya' or we're gonna have some fun."

Okay, Deidre was a little insulted that Dot, her sister's occasional sex toy, didn't recognize her. It wasn't all that surprising, the only people that saw her out of costume were her own gang, and even then that was mostly just Ghoul and Woof, the trustworthy ones, but still she felt that burning touch of insult. That, and anger that she often repressed and put aside came rushing into her system like an injection of drugs. She'd never really hated anybody, but J-Man's crew, the smears of the Jokerz of Gotham, held a special place in her psyche that was generally only reserved for just the things that she could revisit whenever she wanted to hit a bulls-eye on a dart board or kick a ball as hard as she could.

The younger twin of the Jokerz main gang crossed her arms and leaned back in her seat, a flitter of a malicious and taunting smile lighting her face before McGinnis could tell this little rabble to back off, or worse, get into a fight and put Miss Tan in danger. Dot, having been looking at Terry and his defensive position, was quick to look over at the all too comfortable look of the blond.

"What are you smiling about?"

Deidre just continued to grin as Dot bent down toward her, hand tightening the chicken in her hand, and tried to go all alpha female, baby bull-dyke without very much success. The action only made Deidre click her tongue and lean forward onto her table, arms crossed with all the regality her sister held when Deidre held none and generally made do without it. If McGinnis paid attention to anything that came out of her mouth from here on out, maybe the blond could leave without making her night even worse.

"Just smiling at you, Dotty. I'm just imagining how your face is going to look when you realize the big mistake you just made."

Still not registering anything accept that she knew the voice, but not the face before her, the clown girl leaned in even more, teeth baring as she snarled, "Are you crazy, bitch?"

"No," Deidre sighed, absently wiggling her pointer finger inside her coffee and savoring the looks the other Jokerz were giving them, anticipating a catfight, "I'm just the bitch whose sister fucks your boss on an almost daily basis. I'm sure Dee Dee, Ghoul and the rest of my gang would love to hear how you ganged up on me when I'm in the middle of mourning, you stupid twip."

Three things happened with this revelation. One, almost all of the enforcers behind Dot took a giant step back; two, Dana registered who she was, but didn't seem to do anything but hold Terry's hand and widen her eyes; three, Dot seemed to pale even under all of her white paint and started tripping over her words in what might have been something like an apology. It made Deidre feel a little better.

Deidre took another sip of her drink—causing her stomach to knot up again and almost toss the thing—and smiled, raising her hand to still Dot from saying anything or doing anything. So like one of those ancient aristocrats in their ivory throne rooms. She, however, was a jester, not an aristocrat. She had almost boundless patience, but hers was at an end and if these morons didn't leave, someone would lose a limb and she could guarantee it wasn't going to be her.

"Here's what you're going to do," Deidre spoke calmly, and almost menacingly so, "You're going to stop harassing everyone here, you're going to get your asses on those bikes you have rattling out front and you are never going to come back here, or I will beat the shit out of you. And if J-Man asks why you went back to your revolting little hideout without turning a profit, you can tell him it's because you pissed me off. And if he has a problem with that, I can kick his ass, too. Bye-bye."

They could not have hauled ass out of there fast enough.

Finishing her drink—which seemed to make her stomach worse every time she swallowed—Deidre leaned back into the cushiness of the table seats, trying not to look at Dana or McGinnis. That little display had taken everything out of her and McGinnis watched with keen and narrow eyes as she heaved a heavy, heavy sigh. The air pouring out of her lungs gave Terry the impression, in his mind and perhaps even Dana, of some animal on the side of the road exhaling their last breath. Her chest stayed immobile and rigid for a whole minute before she took another breath and looked over at the two of them, pathetic and dull eyes staring out from behind the curtain of her hair.

"My apologies for their behavior," Deidre spoke clearly, truthfully, "I'll be leaving shortly, so you don't have to glare at me from the dance floor."

"You don't have to leave," Dana, surprisingly, said, "I mean, you don't look very good. Maybe you'd like a ride home?"

A weak smile lit from the ends of Deidre's mouth, but she grabbed the coat that had been behind her, becoming wrinkled with her back pressed against it, white and like a dead butterfly pressed between two books, and placed it on her shoulders. She had already paid and tipped the waitress, the coffee in the cup was empty.

"That's nice of you to offer," she said folding her arms across her chest as she walked away, speaking back and voice carried along with the beat of the club and her footsteps, "But I don't want to be more trouble than I'm worth. Sorry."

Equally confused eyes followed her form, her coat, her figure and at last the very tail end of her extraordinarily long blond hair as she passed through the dancing couples and out the door of the club. It was similar to an image Dana had once seen in a fairy tale book; imprinted on the page always in fine, bright colors were pictures of grand balls, couples dancing and the wallflowers walking out of the room into the night.

It made Dana sad for a quarter-second and she looked over to Terry.

"She was one of those girls who were after you, right?"

"I…guess," Terry stuttered, still looking at the door.


	8. ChChChanges

Disclaimer: I don't own Batman Beyond. I make no money from writing this. The characters are used for my own sick pleasure in this, not for any sort of profit.

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Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes -:-

"So," Delia's crazy, oh so in control voice rang through the bodies of her men, eyes faraway and fingers playing with the gun she had gotten from J-Man, "That's the plan for tonight. Be sure you all know your parts and I won't get too mad if one of you mess up. Dismissed."

Not wasting any time, all of the other, much lesser, much less sure of themselves Jokerz made for the door, or window that just happened to be opened as per the Joker's Daughter's request, in spite of there being a biting cold coming in by way of Gotham's always bitch cold winter. This movement included Chucko, though he kept a much more level, assured pace. He was her lieutenant after all and he knew her well enough by now that she was not interested in shooting anyone with that gun just then.

Not until after she and J-Man screwed, anyway.

Getting out of the room, the hefty man passed by the ever present poster of Deidre's face on the far wall, most of the parchment ripped and spray painted over, save for the bottom wording advertising _**'$1.5 Million. Must Be Alive, But Does Not Have To Be In One Piece'**_and walked right out of the door. He hated how, unlike the old days—six months ago, by god—Delia was getting harder to keep up with in these plans to get rich and kill the Bat. She was clearer than Joker had ever been in the few history cubes they had stolen of him actually in the middle of explaining or planning something, but Chucko had the sneaking suspicion that she was going to succeed a lot better than he ever had.

Grabbing his motorbike, Chucko made for the closest liquor store.

Little thoughts crept into his mind, thinking about how freaking scary Delia had gotten over the months. Murderous, psychotic, sociopathic, Bat crazed, pure white skin, ruby red smile, choppy green hair like a deranged ragdoll. The Jokerz throng, gangs throughout the province of Gotham and a few sects in Metropolis had been waiting for someone to take up The Joker mantle (not like the half-assed way J-Man tried and failed for, ending up as second in command) and though they had finally gotten one, Chucko always laughed at how it was the Clown Prince's own kid. Grandkid, but in his bloodline none-the-less.

It reminded him of British monarchy. In a supremely warped and dangerous way, but still like kings and queens of old, handing over their kingdom to their kids. True, nobody—except maybe Deidre or the dearly departed Harley Quinn herself—knew what happened to Joker's actual first and only born, and it would have been interesting to know what being ruled by the full-blooded demon spawn would have been like, but considering Delia was way more like Joker than even Joker, they didn't mind. They had already caught Batman once while under her command, they could just wait to see what would happen if she was listened to this time.


	9. Nothing to Fear

Disclaimer: I don't own anything from this series or any other series mentioned or hinted at.

There will be hinting at episodes from other DC animated universes in this chapter, but nothing big. Just mish-mashing and such.

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Nothing to Fear-:-

"_Nanna, do you ever miss your old friends?"_

"_Of course, darling. They were really the only friends I ever had, how could I not miss them?"_

_"Even after…everything else?"_

_"…Especially after everything else. They may have made bad choices, but they were nice to me, in their own ways. You would do well to remember that, darling."_

_"So, then, why did you give them up?"_

_"…I didn't give them up. I let them forget me. There's a difference."_

Breathing in, breathing out, Deidre pulled her car—the one Nanna had left her—into a parking space quite a long walk from the entrance to the large, brick layered institute of learning. The stick shift jammed for a second, but after making that ugly hissing noise it had been making since long before she was born, it let itself go and the whole car settled on the pavement, turning off with the key's turn. Its red shape looked out of place among all of the rather plain, simple cars of the college students that would be milling about inside the place.

She didn't want to go into this building. She was scared to death and even though she would regret it in a moment, she felt her hand—the one absently holding the wrapped flowers—clench and unclench repeatedly. Even through the bouquet's wrapping, her nails dug into her palm.

After visiting Hatty (_Uncle Hatty_, she absently smirked, remembering her Nanna's stories of him) one would think that she had gotten over the fear of talking with the Ghosts of Years Long-ago. But no. She was not a brave person; not anymore, anyway. Now she was hunted by the people she once called friends, living off of the money stowed away by Nanna and following Harley's wishes from beyond the grave.

She was not a brave person. She was just honoring Nanna.

Growling to herself, Deidre recited one of Nanna's old stories in her head, trying to gain courage, trying so hard to remind herself that this was someone Harley had trusted and known at a point in her life she was not proud of.

'_Do not want anything for yourself. Not really. Only want for everyone else to be a little less unhappy. Swallow your pride, and face your fears. You might even make friends with a Scared Crow or Yellow Firefly if you can do that_.'

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"And make sure that your essays on the Jabberwocky and White Knight are in by tomorrow. Remember, that is half of this month's grade."

An echoing groan sounded and cycled through the college classroom as the bell rang out, almost bursting Deidre's eardrums as she stood leaning against the wall outside the room that was quite the size of an auditorium. Her tiny little frame dressed in faded denim jeans and her white leather jacket looked so out of place as the students passed through the door, quite a few men that were still legally not allowed to date her eyed her as they passed. Though, once she gave them a glare that would give certain Gotham heroes a run for their money, they kept right on their way to their next class.

Listening intently until the sounds of chairs clattering backwards had faded completely and nothing but one set of footsteps could be heard at the bottom of the rather bleacher similar staircase, the young woman took a very deep breath (so deep it hurt the still very raw break in one of her ribs from that incident with those Metropolis gangbangers and their truck) and edged into the door. The flowers in her hands shook along with the rest of her body, but she gave herself props for even making it into the room.

At the bottom of the stairs, dusting off the chalk from the retro black board obviously kept because either the teacher wanted it there specifically for himself or because the school couldn't afford the high-tech equipment, was the man she was looking for. He was a little thinner and greyer than his picture, but his still sported some of his red coloring and stood as tall as he had when the picture in Nanna's photo album had been taken. It gave her a feeling of awe to know that he was still as proud as Nanna had declared him to be.

"The class is over," he called up without turning around, taking a white chalk piece and writing some very clean cursive upon the black top, "It's lunch right now, and the next class isn't until two. Come back in three hours."

Her voice came out almost too quietly to be heard, but it was loud enough for the teacher to cease writing and break his chalk in two separate halves, "Hi, Professor Crane."

Rather hesitantly and slowly so as not to irritate his crickety back, the aged ex-Scarecrow turned on his heel and his deep brown eyes widened at the sight of the young lady at the top of the stairs to his class, holding a bouquet of Mulberry tree leavings and Sweet Briar.

It wasn't possible for her to actually be the woman she looked almost exactly like, but Jonathan found himself just collecting her image to memory and pointing out the similarities as he stepped up towards her. He looked very menacing and she looked like she really wanted to bolt like a little hare away from a black bear, but she held her ground, the only one of her blue eyes that was uncovered by her bangs wide, but not quite showing fear, but rather something that he hadn't seen since he'd lasted visited Jervis or Nigma. Perhaps admiration?

Stopping two steps down from her, Crane cleared his throat and Deidre gave a little shiver as he started talking, the leaves in the bouquet quivering like she should have been.

"Do I know you, miss? You seem familiar."

"I-I-I-I'm t-the gr-granddaughter of o-one of your fellow inmates at Arkham," Deidre started off stuttering, gaining a little ground near the end, "You remember Harley Quinzelle?"

Jonathan's eyebrow rose and as he opened his mouth to answer she handed him the bouquet, very shy and kept her head down. He closed his mouth, but took note that when her head lowered, some very dark blotches of skin were showing around her neckline. Must be Harley's kid.

"Is she dead?" the Professor asked quite bluntly, cradling the wrapped plants in one arm so he could gently lead Deidre down the aisle, seating her three rows from the bottom so he could listen and finish writing his questions to his class in chalk.

"…Yes, sir," Deidre finally answered, sitting delicately in one of the seats, the sounds of young people in their twenties milling the halls.

"By murder, old age or did she take the cowards way out?"

"No!" she replied, voice rattling, but strong as she tilted her back into the seat, offended at even being asked such a thing, "She would never do that. You should know that as well as anyone, Professor Crane."

"So, old age?"

"…No."

He was quiet for a moment at the implication there, the chalk making a swishing noise each time he finished a T, "That's a shame. But, at least she has someone to carry on after her. What's your name, little child?"

"Deidre, sir."

"Any other family? Parents, siblings?"

Deidre's eyes went a little dark at the curiosity behind the questions, but she was not surprised. She had been instructed to indulge Crane as well as she could with anything he asked, as it was in his nature, no matter how many years had passed, for him to ask things usually meant to be kept private. She would do her duty and move on to Smallville…better to make this visit count before she went to the country and totally out of her usual environment of big cities.

"My father was dead before I was born, sir. Nanna looked him up, but he was a John Doe cremated by the city of Gotham. My mother died a few hours after giving birth to me and my sister. She got raging high and drunk and drove her car into a bus. Killed seven other people, including a little girl."

"…Your sister?" he coaxed, adding numbers and equations to the board.

Chewing on her lip, the blond fiddled with the key and chain around her neck. She was unsure how to respond, but did her best, "She, um…she's back in Gotham, Professor."

"Doing what, exactly?"

"I'd…I'd rather not say, if you don't mind."

"Well, you've gotten me curious now," Crane chuckled, turning about toward her again, dark eyes studying her frame and how her fingers started to squirm inside the locks of blonde cascading down over her shoulders in waves, "What's her name?"

"Delia."

His thin, lanky hands grabbed his bouquet off of one of the chairs and walked over to the sink stationed in every teaching room in case it was needed, rummaging under the counter to pull out a pitcher that would hold all of the plants' bulk and some water, voice calling back over his shoulder, "Hmm, Wanderer and Visible. I take it Harley named you both."

"Mmhmm."

"I'm glad. Harley deserved to have a family," Jonathan smiled, "But how rude of me. You have questions of your own, yes?"

Silver blue eyes blinked back at dark brown. No fear, no trembling, just shy curiosity. As she opened her mouth to speak, however, the moment was broken as footsteps, quick and light, sounded behind them and Crane looked with annoyance up towards the door, and one of his students.

Deidre herself turned her head up the aisle and flinched at the perky young man, perhaps her own age, that was most likely about to get a reprimand for interrupting Professor Crane in this private discussion. He was a redhead, very tall, but lean and attractive, with light green eyes looking curiously from Crane, to Deidre. A dopey smile crossed his face as he bounded down the aisle, his own denim pants and button-down red shirt making him look even younger.

"Mister West," Jonathan grumbled, setting the floral arrangement onto his desk and glaring at the man all at the same time, "I do not require your assistance today. Take the few hours you have to visit with your friends for once."

"Ah, teach', you know I don't mind," the redhead spoke heartily, landing at the bottom of the stairs and finally acknowledging Deidre's existence with a cheeky smile, not unnoticed by Jonathan, "And who is this gorgeous creature whose graced the grounds of Central City University?"

"My niece," Jonathan answered, a hidden warning in the statement that made Deidre smile over at him thankfully. She didn't liked getting hit on these days as it almost always led to her being recognized by that horrible black market Wanted Poster on the internet that almost every Rogue, Hero, Tom, Dick and Harry had seen in the last three months and had the freakin' ever grateful Bat looking for her. No, better to let this one think she was off limits.

"Ah," the young man nodded, scratching the back of his head with a little bark of laughter, "I get it, no touching. That's fine. I didn't know you had any family though, Professor. Let alone one so stunning."

Okay, that made her blush.

"Barry West," the redhead greeted, holding his hand out for a shake to Deidre, the blond taking it gingerly and giving it a little wiggle, all the hairs on the back of her neck rising with the familiarity of the name on his lips. A West? Really not something she wanted to deal with in Central City. Not yet, anyway. She hadn't bought the flowers Nanna had asked her to get for one of them just yet.

Leaving now would be a good thing, probably.

Standing from her sitting position, she gave Crane a smile and bowed a fraction so her injuries under her white jacket wouldn't irritate themselves with the motion, "It was nice seeing you, sir, but I really can't stay and talk anymore. I have to leave for Kansas in a few hours and still need some on the road supplies. Mind telling me which way it is to the closest market on the way to the interstate?"

Jonathan allowed himself a small look of disappointment at her leaving so soon, but the look passed his features quickly, leaving behind a little smirk, "Yes. But, first let me give you my apartment's phone number. Should you should have more to say."

Blue eyes blinked, but she didn't say anything as the aged man wrote down his number on a scrap of paper from within his desk, wrinkled and the numbers rather scratchy, but legible. As he handed it to her, she couldn't help but accept it and let herself give him a broad smile. Wide and astonishingly like her grandmother, it made him blink to be sure he didn't cry at the thought.

"I will call, though," Deidre promised, "Nanna spoke so well of you. Take good care of yourself, Professor Crane."

"And you too, little child."

Both of them ignored West as she started up the stairs, hair trailing behind her like a wispy shadow and figure like something from old sepia portraits in Crane's mind residing with the memory of how to make his old Fear Gas and the date of Jervis's birthday.

Jonathan didn't take any notice when Barry frowned at the way the young lady's left leg had a bit of a limp or why the redhead had the feeling that he had seen his Professor's niece somewhere. Somehow, the new Batman kept coming to mind until she disappeared out the door.


	10. Only If You Look Closely

Disclaimer: I own not Batman Beyond, the characters mentioned or the general idea of any DC universe. I make no money writing this, but still find enjoyment in it.

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Only If You Look Closely-:-

Delia looked into the framed, utterly beautiful mirror she had only just recently stolen from some art gallery in lower mid-downtown and watched her mouth give a grin. Her lips spread their now very blood red coloring like the smear of all that awful lipstick she no longer had to use, making her ivory teeth bright, her canines catching her eye.

Still watching herself, she moved her hands through her now darkened forest green hair, chopped like a mop's head down to her shoulders, though still retaining some level of thinness about the locks. The color was so similar to her predecessor it made her smile even wider at the thought, taking her other hand and just lightly cracking the edge of the mirror so she would splinter in the image and become more so than just one thing.

She removed her hand, only slightly bleeding and took some steps back to just settle on the edge of her bed that was still such a mess from earlier that evening. J-Man had wanted to celebrate a job well done, but she only felt like humoring him. She could appreciate sex as much as any human or just any animal, but it got old really quick and she much preferred to make Dot scream after a job like that with so much security. The clown girl didn't like it most times, especially since the last time Delia made her bleed, but she was a much better lay than her boss.

Slowly, her now very dark eyes watched her own hands loosen and discard the dark purple and bloody dark red tailed coat jacket so she could look at how pale and white she had gotten today.

Her skin, that used to be a sort of dainty peach color, seemed to get closer to the color of the winter moon every day. Pretty soon she'd be all chalk white, save for certain parts of her anatomy that made every man swoon, and her internal organs.

'_Oh, genetics are so much fun,_' she thought with a silent, horrible chuckle.

She blinked for a moment, fingers tracing some open wounds, scratch marks really, along her ribs and then looked back at the mirror and couldn't help but frown.

Yes, genetics…This line of thinking always led back around to her listing off differences between her and her little sister, even if she wasn't thinking about her previously. It was irritating as hell, and she hated it almost as much as she hated her, but it always happened and it was better than wasting her time counting sheep when she wanted to just pass out after a heist.

Leaning into her pillow, the fluffy grey one that she had actually bought some years ago that never seemed to get flat even after taking a spin or two in the washer, she brought the covers up over her lower body and starting ticking off. One by one.

One: Deidre was Harley's offspring. Delia was Joker's.

Two: Delia took all of the family madness and enjoyed it. Deidre had nothing.

Three: Deidre was a spineless, caring, good person. Delia didn't care about anyone and was quite proud of such.

Four: Delia was slowly, but not too slowly, becoming her grandfather, but with a vagina and tits. Deidre was becoming Harley, though from which time period of her life the elder twin could not be sure.

Five: Delia was dangerous and climbing up the crime ladder two pegs at a time, knocking whoever stands in her way down as she goes. Deidre was taking the abuse and hiding something.

Six: Harley made sure that their names were as different as night and day and with two meanings. Delia means 'from Delos and visible,' so she took her destiny to be that of grand design, all flash and bang and noise and show. Deidre means 'wanderer' and one was based off of a story about a woman who died alone. They certainly seemed to be living up to their names, as well.

Seven: Delia likes to smile and laugh because that's just who she is; whether the smile is actually made in good or bad humor is not the question. Deidre only smiles around Ghoul or Woof, and she rarely laughs; she seems to hate doing either.

Growling, Delia took her hand, grabbed the one shoe that hadn't come off of her feet of its own free will and tossed it directly at the mirror.

When the priceless antique hit the floor, she heard it shatter and could just visualize behind her eyelids the blood she had left on it splintering into the glass and into itself as it crumbled. The frame made an ugly clanging sound that she could find pretty.

And she did find the noise pretty, even as she fell asleep with an upside down frown.


	11. Something Has Changed

Disclaimer: I don't own Batman Beyond, or the Deeds. I just enjoy screwing with it all.

Okay, small little note here is that I'm trying to keep this connected as much as possible to some of the facts in _'21 Truths of DeeDee'_, for which this fic is based off of. Some facts will remain, and some details will sprout from it. At least most of the ones with Terry will remain the same. There will be hints to a certain fact there in this chapter, but bare with me. This is important.

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Something Has Changed-:-

The first thing he really notices when he wakes up is that he is no longer hanging upside down. This is good, because now the blood that wasn't flowing from his cuts was no longer rushing to his head and making him sick. Being as he had been beaten for something going on five hours before he'd passed out—no, wait, not _passed_ out, but knocked out by…he couldn't remember—and had woken up to find, once his vision cleared, he was in the Batcave.

The second thing he notices is that Barbara is talking with Bruce about what a mess everything had been.

What had been was obviously important as the Commissioner's voice was raised and Bruce had made coffee in anticipation for this to die down.

Groaning, Terry got up from the cold steel of the examination table he had been laying on, grabbing the elders' attentions. When he opens his mouth to speak, he tastes blood, a possible sign of just how badly he had been beaten by all of his Rogues. He tries to ignore it as the two are looking at him, waiting for his questions, Barbara with the decency to look worried and Bruce looking his usual stone will powered self, sipping his cream filled coffee.

"So, how'd I get here," Terry asks, voice hoarse from being half-strangled by Joker's Daughter, the marks on his neck flaring like a burst of fever when he runs his fingers over his own skin. Guess he was stuck wearing turtlenecks for a while.

"Terry," Barbara started, grabbing a pair of rubber gloves to finish cleaning the more minor cuts along his arms and torso, "Do you remember anything before you were unconscious? Any of the Jokerz or other Rogues screaming or shooting?"

Terry holds in the urge to flinch back as the original Batgirl pressed a swab of cotton to his chest, the still secreting wound almost as wide as his finger and long as the chopsticks with the floral designs he'd used when he had dinner with Dana on several occasions when her father wasn't home. The medicine hurt, but he kept in mind that it was a lot better than getting sick from a cut. He could just imagine what Warhawk or Superman would say to that next time he had to go up to the Watchtower and it would be better for him if he just dealt with this now.

"I remember Joker's Daughter was about to pull off my mask and…I think I smelled something kind of sweet. Then, I don't know, there was coughing and that bi—that girl fell to the floor and I think I passed out. It was weird."

"We know that part," Bruce replied before Barbara could, sipping again from his coffee as Ace padded over to the teen, curious, "The viewing lenses in the mask weren't completely damaged. What we would like to know is if you had any…recollection of one of the Jokerz assisting you."

"…I'm sorry, what?"

Bruce gave a sigh and turned to the computer. It's ever present glow, always illuminating the cave, became brighter, causing Terry to blink a moment, and then came into focus. It was a recording from just before he passed out. The images were shorted out here and there, depending on where Blight, Inque, or everyone else had punched him in hopes of making him go blind or something, and the general feel of the recording was grey and fuzzy, but there was a story behind the annoyance.

Terry's blue eyes watched as Bruce played the time just before he had smelled that sweet gas; Joker's Daughter was letting go of the Batsuit, yelling at what they could only assume were one of the other Jokerz—perhaps one of her lieutenants—a gun in her hand and shooting up into the ceiling as some of the other Rogues passed out around her feet. Delia was actually the last one standing, arms going limp but still clutching at her gun like she was five and it was her favorite toy, before her legs gave out and she fell to the side, landing on, as far as Terry could tell, J-Man.

Thirty seconds passed and just as Terry was about to speak up, he made out someone walking into the screen setting, wearing a rather ugly gas mask. He couldn't make out who it was, but he would bet good money that it was a woman, very petite. She stepped over the bodies, stiff and careful not to trample over hands and feet, limbs or other such things, until she paused just before J-Man (Terry was pretty sure after looking over the dark grey body and noticing the coattails that it must be J-Man) and brought her foot down on his gloved hand.

That time Barbara gave a little smile as she soaked another cotton ball in some topical ointment, but let Terry continue watching.

The figure moved from assaulting J-Man and seemed to stand just before the passed out Knight, hands, if that was what Terry was looking at, fiddling with something. Perhaps it was a key as, after a moment of the figure standing perfectly still, collecting their thoughts for what they were about to do (whatever that was,) little hands reached up and seemed to pull at the chain Terry was hanging by. Terry noticed that there was a little click and then some resounding clinking sounds before her watched himself fall to the floor in a heap.

What came from that was something that perhaps, long ago and featured in one of the movies the Old Man and Barbara might have seen before the first sprouting of grey along their hairlines, was too fantastic to accurately describe. The little figure, much smaller and thinner than Terry himself, worked to lift the unconscious Batman onto their back and as far as any of them could tell, bolted with him out of the room with careful accuracy of knowing the abandoned warehouse's structure and layout and made their way out to the alley adjacent to the place.

The outline of the Batmobile came into focus and somehow, none of them knew how, the figure hacked the lock on the door, opening it and deposited Terry into the driver's seat. And more than that, they buckled him in, not too tight to irritate his injuries, but enough to keep him in a sitting up position and went back into the warehouse. After maybe a minute, the figure came back, this time with a large wooden—Terry supposed, as he could hear a creaking noise when it was set in the trunk—crate. When the trunk was securely locked, the person came back around and typed in the auto-pilot for the Batmobile. The directions to the alley next to the GCPD came into focus in bright red letters and then the figure pinned something to Terry's chest and a hand reached up to one of the buttons of the suit's audio and visual receptors….

And the recording faded into static.

When Bruce popped the disc to the recording out of the computer console, Terry felt his eyes dilate to pinpricks in simple, or perhaps not so simple, shock. And the worst part was that the old man looked amused at his errand boy's reaction. He knew something, as he always did, but he was willing to wait until Terry picked his jaw up off of the ground.

"So, any of this seem important or are you still drawing a blank?" Bruce questioned, taking his seat again.

"I…That was a girl…"

"Brilliant deduction, Sherlock," Barbara smiled. Her fingers twiddled with the band-aid in her hand until it came out of the wrapping and she gently placed it along the open wound on his shoulder that was a result of one of the Splicers—the ram, maybe—tossing him into a partially rusted pipe, and continued to speak, "Yes, it was a girl. About, oh, ten minutes after my police saw you take off in the Batmobile, they reported loud noises and shots coming from inside the building. Someone, though none of them could confirm identification, was chased out of that warehouse and we lost track of her after she fled into the woods so the Jokerz wouldn't follow. That person saved your life and left us a little present in the car."

"What?"

Barbara seemed to lose some of her luster at the question. Moving with ease from her position in front of him, in long strides, she made for the crate that she and Bruce had pulled from the trunk. They had assumed that it would blow up or unleash toxins into the air, but, like the letter pinned to Terry's chest, it was something else entirely. Terry hopped less than gracefully off of the operating table and followed after the Commissioner, watching her pull out what looked like old pictures and letter and clippings from the confines. He looked inside for himself and found discs, CDs, credit card statements, really old cloth in strangely bloodied conditions and—was that Kryptonite in a glass vile?

"Remember when Harley died and you mentioned running into that clown girl who was related to her?" Bruce questioned, somewhat more somber as Ace strode up to his master, sitting before his feet in what a human could confirm as concern, "It seems she left us a lot of things that Harley had been keeping for myself, the Justice League, some Rogues and numerous other people. Half of what was in that letter pinned to you was an apology for everything Harley or her children and grandchildren had ever done or will do."

Terry looked up at the strong, though at the moment rather sad looking man and gave him a questioning raise of the brow, "And what else was there? What's the other half of the letter?"

Giving a low groan, what once have been a growl used against enemies, Bruce picked up what might have been a dimebag before the drug trade redefined itself so many years ago. It was filled to the brim with a sort of grey/green powder substance, though it wasn't drugs or the like. It looked almost like flour in the light, but that couldn't be it. Not when the original Batman was involved.

"What is that?"

Bruce gave a half smirk and Barbara tried not to laugh as her ex-husband answered, "These are some of Harley's ashes."


	12. Right or Wrong, One Doesn't Care

Disclaimer: Oh, I waste so much time saying this, but very well. I own no characters of Batman Beyond, I simply use them for my own entertainment and no profit of any kind. Blah.

I'd just like to say how hard it was to write this chapter. Playing good off of evil is the most exhausting thing when you know you're going to screw up and overplay the characters if not treading lightly.

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Right or Wrong, One Doesn't Care About the Other-:-

Perhaps it would have been really wise of them to leave when Deidre walked in the door.

Woof and Ghoul had been on their proclaimed, personal spots on the couch since J-Man's Jokerz had come back from whatever they had been doing, accosting little old ladies or knocking over a night club or whatever. The entire lot of them had been there for three days since Delia and J-Man had been on a non-stop sex binge and it was really starting to irritate the walking scarecrow and oversized hyena just how at home they had made themselves.

Giving off as much of a 'don't talk to us, don't look at us, don't attempt to make conversation with us' aura as they could, the boys continued their own activities.

Ghoul was hacking into an off-shore account of a multi-billionaire that never seemed to notice the blonde leeching off of his funds as he got twice as much the next day anyway and none of his accountants ever noticed it among all the other deductions from expensive champagne to cars. Who would notice a meager one thousand dollars for simple meals from the corner store or fast food restaurant?

Woof stayed at the end of the sofa, head perched on the arm and claws absently changing the channel to the television whenever one of the more obnoxious Jokerz seemed to get into whatever Woof was watching. Once they left he may change it back, but only if he heard them leave the living area entirely, complete with slamming door and huffed breathing. Music to his ears.

This had been going on, as mentioned before, for about three days with no interruption except from Chucko wandering in and enquiring where all the food had gone. Where upon they would each glance up and point at any other gang member in the general vicinity. It sort of ticked them off that he shrugged when J-Man's crew were to blame for their lack of meals when they got down-right pissed and made it damn clear on the second day that if their own meals, not Chucko's, were taken without permission, the person responsible would be missing an appendage.

Then, as Woof changed the channel from two young women on a cooking show to that channel always showing demolition of cars or trucks or apartment complexes, the front door slammed open with so much force that the little window that was installed in it broke into tiny little pieces and both of them looked up to find a very wet, civvies wearing, wild animal in a cage behaving Deidre stalking in with a newspaper of all things. It was clutched in her hand like it was the deed to her soul and when some of the Jokerz, including Dottie, who had returned not three hours ago spied her, Woof heard them all move away and could smell…they were scared of her.

And they had good reason to be. Woof didn't have to have very good eyesight or an acute sense of smell to know that the petite blonde was mad as hell.

That didn't bode well for anyone on the complex. For one thing, as long as Woof and Ghoul had known Deidre (two years) they had taken note that she really didn't get angry at anything. Not really big angry. Sure, she would get upset or irritated or little bits and pieces of wrath that was rather reminiscent of an old dog marking a particular chew toy as their own, but this was way different. If they stuck to the dog metaphor, now she looked like she had gone rabid and was looking for blood.

When she turned to look at Ghoul and Woof, her vivid/wild blue eyes narrowed a little and she slammed the paper onto the coffee table Ghoul's feet had been perched atop to balance his computer. The grey skinned blonde gave a wavering smile until she directed a frown, deep and rigid, at both of them and spoke with an entirely too calm voice.

"Where's my sister?"

Driven now not by an urge to be helpful, but to survive what was to come, both of the more competent members of the leading Jokerz of Gotham pointed to the hall that led to Delia's room.

Deidre didn't even bother to nod a thank you and made for the room, for her sister and for whatever was in store. A less observant Joker that hadn't been with Dot's group earlier that night stood in her way for about a second before she not only did not change directions to stop from colliding with him, but head butted him so hard he flew back two feet, stumbled, and got the hell out of the way as she had more hallway to go before she reached her intended target. Smart.

While Ghoul continued to look down the hall, even as the long blonde haired girl was no longer in sight, Woof took his eyes from looking at the broken nosed younger Joker in the aftermath of the collision and directed himself to look at the paper that was slammed on the table. It was crinkled badly and whatever had gotten Deidre wet had stained the paper and typed wording, her finger nails had made an impression as well, but he still wanted to know what had made her so mad.

Using both clawed hands to flatten the paper, the front page story showed in blazing red ink where the liquid hadn't damaged it under the producer of the paper's name, The Daily Planet. Woof tried not to bite down on his own tongue at the wording and gave a low whine to draw Ghoul's attention. This was all so very bad.

Ghoul spun the paper so he could read it himself and didn't even notice when his laptop fell from his legs and landed on the floor. He didn't notice the slight cracking noise that came with the technology hitting the ground, it didn't matter. This was all so very bad.

'**Harley Quinn Found: Murdered.'**

* * *

Ah, the little bitch had found the body. She had returned back to the warehouse later than Delia had anticipated, but the elder twin hadn't expected much.

Though, admittedly, she had never imagined it would turn out like this.

J-Man had been sucking on her left breast, pounding into her as hard as he could after they had taken a break before his lackey's had come back from the club empty handed. They had eaten some Belgian chocolate and downed three beers, so they were quite ready to add a round to the already standing twenty-three sessions of fucking. The beer had added intensity to Delia since any drugs or such that were supposed to make her less than happy reacted in just the opposite way to her genetic factors and she was really, really enjoying herself.

Then, and quite out of the blue, her door was knocked in and J-Man, who had turned to cuss out whoever was stupid enough to do such a thing, was gripped by the ankle and dragged out the room.

Delia would have objected, as it were, but seeing as it was her little sister and she had this utterly blank look on her face as she dragged the tall young man out of the room, the dark green haired twin simply let the naked clown be removed as she grabbed one of the sweaty sheets she'd been done on and wrapped it around herself. Clothing could wait until later. This was going to be fun.

* * *

"What the fuck do you think you're doing Dee Dee? How dare you—"

J-Man's embarrassed ranting was swiftly cut off as the hand around his ankle tightened painfully and he was, without any warning, tossed over the couch Ghoul and Woof occupied and thrown into the coffee table. He rolled once and felt the wood splinter and give way as his ribs cracked on the edge, head hitting the leg and becoming cut. There were a couple beer bottles on the table, which shattered and he felt them become embedded in his shoulders. By the time his body stopped moving, he felt like he couldn't breathe.

Of course, then he realized that he couldn't breathe because the petite, generally regarded as much more friendly twin to his girlfriend, had jumped the couch and landed on top of him. She wasn't wearing heals, but her shoes were steel-tipped and it just plain _hurt_.

Stepping off of J-Man's ribs, Deidre allowed the young man just enough time to take a very painful intake off air, cough for a moment and almost start talking, before she gripped his throat like it was putty, lifted him up and slammed him into the nearest wall. All was done under the watchful eyes of his Jokerz, Delia's Jokerz, and Delia herself. J-Man was still very naked, makeup rubbed off after his time with Delia, but that didn't concern him so much as the fact that Deidre looked and was acting like, she was going to kill him.

She shouldn't be able to do any of this. She was half his size, weight, strength; he had assisted Delia in disciplining Deidre on numerous occasions and she had never acted like this. So, it came as a minor comfort when Delia finally spoke up, stepping behind her little sister as some of J-Man's crew started pulling out weaponry and Delia's crew stood in a semi-circle; Ghoul was with his plastic pumpkin with little balls in one hand that everyone knew were explosive, Woof was in a hunched down position with flashing teeth and claws and Chucko seemed unsure of what to do, just sort of standing behind the couch.

"Dee Dee, put him down," Delia said in a sort of sarcastic scolding tone, still with the red lipped smile in those sheets that covered her necessary to have covered parts, "You're scaring the kids."

J-Man let himself smile for a moment as Deidre glanced back at her sister for a moment. This, however, was quickly followed by her pressing all of her upper body into J-Man's windpipe, followed swiftly by a vicious kick with that steel toed boot as she dropped him to his so very unprotected groin.

While J-Man just lay on the floor, Deidre rounded on everyone else and pointed at J-Man's crew, her silken hair falling in its proper place before her right eye, "All of you wait outside."

Dot, standing beside Chucko as both were wondering just what was going on, made to disagree, "You can't tell us what to—"

This objection, however intentioned, in the end was cut off as Deidre picked up one of the broken bottles, took aim and hit Dot across the forehead with the end of it that wasn't broken or liable to do much damage.

"I said get out!" Deidre screamed, her mouth so wide with the scream that they could see the back of her throat.

This time, nobody objected. Everyone, including Chucko left, aside from the pathetic mess on the floor, Joker's Daughter, Ghoul and Woof. Delia stayed still because, despite this off-balance behavior, she was enjoying this entirely and the boys stayed to keep Deidre from killing either of the other two.

When the door shut, complete with tinkling of even more glass falling out of the door, Delia took a seat on the edge of the sofa, like some chaotic Greek or Roman goddess taking her place upon her throne. The sheet she had taken around her breasts and torso weaved with the motion before fluttering to the floor like a gown.

"So, what's your problem little sister?"

Blue eyes widened again, and from their positions, Ghoul and Woof could tell that that was a question that would be the beginning of the real fight to come. Ghoul moved from his spot to pick up his computer and deposit it into the adjacent kitchen, on the counter so if the twins actually came to blows he would be able to hack that off-shore account and pay for the hospital bills. Woof stayed stationary, ears flat.

"…What's my problem," Deidre finally croaked, "That's what you're wondering? Did any of you, perhaps, have the notion to wonder where I've been for the last three days?"

"You told us you were making Nanna a dinner or something," Delia answered, shrugging.

Deidre gave out such a loud, sharp, false bark of laughter at that remark that she held her stomach for a moment, bent forward a little and then came back up. A wave along the ocean.

"Oh, I was going to. But that kinda got ruined by my finding her with her throat cut and the tell-tale signature of some other Joker's having been there," Deidre continued laughing, hysterical as she finished the statement by lifting her foot and slamming it into J-Man's side.

Delia, when Deidre wasn't looking, rolled her eyes and answered, "Oh. I see."

"Really?" the smaller twin asked, voice dark as she stepped away from the now fetal positioned young man and into the kitchen. She had some of her caffeinated beverages and fast-reacting caffeine pills in an area of the higher cupboards dominated by pots and pans, where nobody would find them. She needed those right now, "You see? You see—when the cops came to pick up her body and I get grilled by Gordon and badgered and followed by the press, you didn't answer your phone! You didn't answer your phone and here I come to find out it's because your phone, which I traced, was in a trashcan down town with a set of your clothes covered in that bastard's semen. Don't you tell me 'you see', you fucking bitch."

That last sentence took itself and fueled even more amusement into Delia. Her red lips widened in her grin even more and she crossed her leg over the other; lady like and genteel and everything else that she wasn't painting an image for the men in the room so she looked sympathetic as she covered her smile with one hand. She had hoped and really tried to make sure that Deidre would break from this event, but this was something else. This was Delia's Christmas, Valentine's and every good lay she had ever had, plus the best drugs on the planet all wrapped into one single event that she wanted to prolong as long as possible and savor with every second passing and word exchanged.

The Jokerz gangs, hers and J-Man's alike would suffer undoubtedly from this, but why should Delia care?

"And the worst part is," Deidre continued, finding some of the pills and popping them to ward off the oncoming bout of exhaustion trying to creep into her system after not having slept in days, "That you don't even care, do you? You never really cared about Nanna, so I doubt that whether she died in her sleep or by the hand of some slimy thug would make much of a difference to you."

"Mm, little sister, you know me so well," the green haired twin answered back, removing the hand from her face and exposing her emotions as they were, but trying to keep in the smile within her voice, "True, I didn't much care for Harley. Whether or not she's dead or alive makes no real difference to me…and I don't care."

"Well, how do you feel about this: I'm moving out."

This statement had not been on anyone's thought waves. The boys—well, Ghoul and Woof—looked at Deidre like she had not only suffered a break-down but was also committing suicide. Delia simply tilted her head and clicked her tongue on the roof of her mouth, fingers twiddling with the ends of her hair that tickled her neckline.

"You're moving out," Delia echoed, "When?"

"Right now. I'm just here to get some of my clothes—the ones that you haven't worn and don't have that twip's stains along the hemline—and my books. Then, and this is by far the high light of my morning, I have to get Nanna's body released from the morgue at police headquarters and arrange to have her cremated."

Deidre smiled, completely and falsely at her twin, grabbed the open bottle of caffeine she'd taken out and made for the bedroom with that being said. Her hair trailed behind her like a sick dream Ghoul and Woof watched, not noticing when Delia got up from the couch, the sheet falling off of her in the process, not that she cared. The last thing Ghoul and Woof saw enter the hall was Delia's milk white, naked form stalk after her sister. The dark green locks or hers, much heavier and greasier than Deidre's, remained in place even with the motion.

* * *

Stepping into the always clean and well-taken care of room, Delia leaned on the doorframe as her little sister grabbed what clothes there were from the drawers and books from all around the floor and high surfaces, adding them two or three at time to the suitcases she kept when there was danger for their gang and they had to relocate. Though she had never done this sort of thing for herself, she was doing it pretty well for the moment.

Voice like some lawyers she had seen on the news, matter of fact and always in charge of themselves, Delia questioned, "Out of curiosity, where do you intend to go? You know, if I have to find you and inform you of the heists or Bat related things that need doing, I'll need some way to get in contact with you."

Pausing for a moment, just in between making to grab a gorgeous appareled shirt Nanna had given her for her last birthday with black silk and painted red leaves and a little book in reference to Virginia Woolfe, Deidre sighed. What little anger she had left in her could be saved for another time. The beating she had given J-Man had left her emotions in an evaporated coating along the walls of her psyche and she just didn't have it in her to get in an all out slug-fest with the elder twin. She was too tired.

Taking a deep breath to steady herself and guard against the urge to cry, Deidre pulled a pre-paid phone from her pocket and tossed it at the naked girl, "Use this if you need to reach me. But only if it's important."

Delia caught the phone and looked it over. As her sister closed her two suitcases and made for the hall, the green haired Joker's Daughter followed after leisurely.

As they both came out into the living area to find Ghoul had grabbed a quilt from the sofa and draped it over J-Man so neither of the other two would have to look at just how pathetic he was, Ghoul and Woof downcast their eyes so they wouldn't look directly at either twin. Though, admittedly, they didn't think Delia would care about her decency, but they could never be too careful with the psycho that was their leader. And, as the case was, they were too ashamed to look Deidre in the eye.

Deidre, looking even smaller with the two extra large suitcases gripped in her hands, didn't say anything else, to Delia or to the boys and just left. Left the complex, left the gangs hovering outside the doors, left it all behind her. She would see them again, when they needed her. But for the time being, she needed some time.

Still standing naked in the living room, Delia looked over the phone and, after pressing some buttons, found that the only number on the phone was also disposable and that it came with Delia's favorite song as the ringtone.

Delia would have to keep track of everything now.


	13. The Country Sucks

Disclaimer: I don't own Batman Beyond and make no money from writing this.

_Let us go to the country this chapter. I find myself becoming gloomy in my own writing._

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The Country Sucks-:-

Maybe she could go back to Gotham soon…

No, she shouldn't be thinking like that again. Gotham was dead to her now. Never mind that it was where she had been born and raised and had become so in tune with her nature that she could look at its dreary sky and find a silver lining in it to find peace of mind. If she went too close to it now, there was no doubt in her mind that she would die in one horrible way or another and she could accept that.

It's just…

Glaring up at the nicotine stained ceiling after what feels like an eternity rather than the five simple minutes she's been awake, Deidre felt like her head was going to explode. She decided, right there on the inexpensive hotel sheets with their designs of twisted iron seashells that are meant to look gorgeous splayed out against the light eggshell white of the bed linens she was lying on in the cozy B&N hotel sitting innocently on the first entrance to the highway of Smallville, Kansas, that people are idiots.

How can anyone like the country? How? The first ten minutes she had spent in town had included her asking directions from a gas station attendant to the nearest hotel, getting stuck in the mud, pushing her car with all of its hidden goodies out of the mud and getting soaking wet as it rained.

Now, getting up at five o'clock in the morning (was there ever a worse time to wake up for a person so young?) a very loud train was passing by on its merry way to the station to unload whatever and making some horrible bell that must have been cast and hand made by Satan ring every ten seconds.

And, to make Deidre's life even more perfect, now that the sun was rising just so subtly over the horizon, there were birds screaming. Ugly, long feathered birds, with some sort of appendage on their throats perched atop every frickin' barn in the area shrieking their little lungs out.

Grabbing a pillow that had fallen from where she'd taken her fitful rest filled with the sounds of crickets and cicadas, the blond placed the fluffy object over her face and screamed her lungs out. It was going to be a long day.

* * *

'_Breakfast, breakfast, breakfast…_' the words echoed repeatedly in her mind as she walked, or stalked, as the case may be, down the stairs to the lounge where the oh so chipper restaurant attached to the hotel was located. She was nearly blind, seeing as her eyes had remained rather blurry after opening the blinds to look _directly_ at the sun because she forgot that this early in the day it was level with her window and not quite out of her range of vision, but that was okay. If she looked at anyone directly in the eye at the moment, she would probably have the urge to strangle them for smiling and saying 'good morning, young lady' and that was bad. Or, so she kept telling herself.

Her little form, dressed in her only black woman's suit and red and white striped turtleneck, took a seat in the area at the counter and allowed her head to hit the counter as she awaited the bound to be ultra perky waitress or waiter or cook, because she had no idea who did anything in this hell hole. The pain from the forehead impact was nice, compared to the sunlight and sounds of the country. So, she did it again.

Three seconds later, "Hey, there, little lady! What'll it be?"

Resisting the urge to punch the waiter's windpipe, Deidre tilted up until she had a clear line of vision to see through her hair, looking rather like a dead banshee on the side of some Greco-Roman vase. That didn't seem to scare the waiter away, as he was the size of a semi, bald, in an apron and still smiling, so she answered plainly.

"Coffee. High caffeine. What's the special for breakfast?"

"Bacon, ham, eggs and grits served with two biscuits or steak fried chicken with eggs and toast served over grits."

Blinking at the man, she thought over what would be most unlikely to give her a heart-attack and ordered, "Just give me one egg, sunny side up, and the two biscuits."

"Those aren't the specials."

"Do they cost the same?"

"Yes."

"Then just get me the order and I'll pay it in full. I don't even care much about the food, okay, I just want the coffee. I've got a long day ahead of me."

Still smiling, the waiter (also chef, apparently, as he went behind the counter and started up the stove) made her meal and in record time was back with her order and boiling coffee. She downed the coffee in one go, refilled, downed that one, refilled again and then started on her biscuits.

"So," the waiter/chef started talking, as though he hadn't acknowledged she'd downed her coffee without feeling any pain as it was scorching hot and probably left welts down her esophagus, "I haven't seen you in town. Where you from?"

"Gotham."

"Here for business or pleasure?"

"Family business."

"Whose family, maybe I know them and could give you directions?" The friendly (why did all these people have to be friendly so early in the morning?) man suggested brightly.

Though he seemed nice and pleasant, as all country folk were to pretty young things that looked like they should be a flight attendant in their too pristine suits when actually this particular young thing felt more like she was on her way to be burned at the stake, Deidre did not smile back at him. It was hard for her to be friendly to anyone when she was biting the inside of her cheek every time she moved her now seemingly worthless, cracked, still limping leg at all. Actually, everything hurt after that little run-in with another freaking gang out of Central City and she was just trying to breathe.

"They're not my family, but I already know their address," she sighed, finishing her egg in two gulps and setting down the credits for the meal, plus tip, "Thanks anyway."

* * *

Terry had never been in the same room as this many elderly people in his life. True, they were former and on some level even current super heroes, but this was insane. The only person in this entire house-complete with bright sunny filled windows and florally painted walls-that was under fifty (besides the newest Batman himself) was the current Flash. This also being the same person who had helped Terry get Bruce to Smallville based on a hunch.

Of course, Barbara had been the one to ultimately get Bruce in the car, but Terry wasn't keeping score.

Sighing, Terry felt his shoulders sink down with his lungs shrinking within his chest, all annoyance and an ultimate feeling of discomfort upon Lois's especially chosen sofa on the porch that could be seen upon the veranda Clark had built about twenty years ago, drinking the comfortably warm coffee that helped turn away the cold numbness running along his fingertips from the ever present chill of the Fall air. Beside him, smile brilliant and so astoundingly like his grandfather sitting across the kitchen way chatting with Bruce, Barry continued to slurp his coffee in the most obnoxious way.

The current Batman really wished he had thought to bring Max. She was at least someone he had known a while and not someone who he had the feeling, judged him for everything he did.

"So," Barry said, starting up the beginning of what he was hoping would be a better conversation than when he had first met McGinnis, "What did this stone cold fox do that's got the Jokerz and you chasing her around the country? She snitch on them or something?"

Maybe this was why Bruce was such an introvert…hanging around the Flash clan was like being stuck on a never ending parade float to awkward conversations.

Terry rolled his eyes, "No, she just…Her _sister_ is not a nice person and neither were her former "associates". But she was and as a result, she helped me out of a situation where I couldn't save myself. And she got _caught_, while she was surrounded by _every_ lunatic I've had to deal with in the last year, so of course, now _she's_ paying for it. And here we are," he finished, keeping in mind, or trying to put out of his mind as it were, the fact that he had emphasized quite a few words in his explanation.

"That blows," Barry responded in such a cavalier way it was frightening, taking another slurp from his drink, "But, if we're right about this, and she is indeed coming here, maybe we can all do something about this."

"Really? You think there's something the Justice League can do with a third generation ex-Rogue whose travelling around the entire country because she is not only avoiding an imposed death sentence from her very own twin sister but also visiting every person her grandmother knew in her lifetime and also knows all of our dirty little secrets?"

"Why wouldn't we, Baby Bat?"

Feeling his neck almost snap on the road to turn to see the owner of the voice, Terry's blue eyes widened when met with the still vibrant green eyes of Wally. The redhead had tea splashed across the shoulder of his red T-shirt, which was an obvious sign of Bruce having forced him to go bye-bye before the founder of the Bat clan hit him across the face with his cane.

Obviously, eavesdropping was one of his super powers if he could hear them from his spot in the kitchen while they were on the veranda and Barbara, Lois and Linda were talking while preparing lunch. Clark was now talking with Bruce though, so maybe the Man of Steel had filled the fastest man alive in on their conversation.

Terry was still a little uncomfortable with this whole thing.

Both the Flash the 3rd and Batman the 2nd raised their brows at Flash Senior as Terry explained, "Well for one thing Mr. West—"

"Wally."

"—Wally, I myself could hear the conversation between Bruce and Mr. and Mrs. Stewart all the way in the manor's kitchen from the Batcave when Bruce brought it up. They did not seem pleased, and I even think I heard the phrase 'murdering, whip-wielding probable whore' leave Mr. Stewart's mouth twice. It was kind of hilarious the first time, but the second time, Bruce got pretty mad."

"Long story kid," Wally chirped, a look of total understanding on his wrinkled features as he recalled something John had mentioned just after Rex had turned two while warning him about certain kinds of girls.

"Uh-huh. And then there was the conversation with Wonder Woman and…I'm not getting into that. I can't, it's too awkward."

* * *

When her car engine cuts off with her key telling it to do so as her fingers turn the little thing and its chain with its one twin key that opened the trunk and that little hidden compartment in the car's back seat, she slides the keys into her breast pocket. She allows herself to take in a breath of the air strung out along the Kent resident and property. Where upon she visualized every cow (the ones that are big and white with the cute black spots) and crop that had ever been brought up on this farm.

Taking in another breath, she stepped out of her car, the flowers for both Kents held separately in her arms with the ever present feeling of dread as she made the careful trek to the front door.

Mud is everywhere from the sprinkler system set along the property for the crops and three of those ugly birds pass by her legs as her shoes with their rather distinct lack of high heel left their prints. One of the birds actually stopped in its tracks to watch her lift one foot in front of the other, trying to reassure herself that if Lois opens the door she won't know who the heck she is; if Clark opens the door there's the possibility that he won't hit her, since he didn't actually hit girls; if Conner/Kon/Tim Drake's best friend opens the door…he'll either be too stupid to recognize her, or hit her so hard she'll be dead before she hit the ground. When she finally reached the porch, with its two rocking chairs the previous Kents built to relax on in their days of happy marriage, she knocked delicately upon the wood and the bird—rooster, she finally remembers from all of those nights watching less interesting midnight specials—looks from her, to her car, and moves to follow its friends.

When heavy steps head her way to the door from the inside, she feels her back straighten to perfection that would be admired within the ranks of the marines and prays to God, her Nanna and any of her magical inclined relatives that may or may not know she exists, that Kon is not here today. He _shouldn't _be due back for a visit for about three more days, but she's not known for her luck…

When the door opens and she finds herself looking into a pair of blue eyes she last saw in a Gotham night club observing her and what she would do next…Deidre finds her own eyes roll back into her head and groans not in defeat or despair, but annoyance unmeasured by any person or thing in the cosmos.

"Oh, no. No, no. Not you again."


	14. Memories

Disclaimer: I don't own Batman Beyond. Blah.

Okay, I couldn't wait to get this over with. If you're looking into anything with Joker in this series, you have to look at Tim and its effects on him…or so everybody seems to think. Anyway, try and enjoy.

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_It's hard to find someone you love in the world more than your family…_  
_-Margot at the Wedding._

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**Memories-;-**

The screen that has been built into his house since he'd moved in with his family so long ago is bright and the darkness Tim is sitting in makes his eyes blink back tears that form to keep them from burning. Bruce looks back at him over the connection and the words slide out of his mouth in that way Tim used to recognize as the old man being both afraid and adamant about a decision he has made.

"We brought Harley's youngest to the manor," Bruce stated, blue eyes staring at Tim's equal blue.

The former Boy Wonder tilted his head before responding…

* * *

A week after Tim left the hospital, not entirely remembering, all but bits and pieces of just what happened and burn marks from where McGinnis had used that buzzer on the microchip he didn't even know that he had all healed and nothing remaining but an itchiness, Tim had sought out counseling.

From J'onn of all beings.

While it was true that the green alien had gotten a lot more social since marrying an Earthling so long ago, Tim hadn't really seen him in quite some time. But, if he wanted to seek any help for what happened during the time Joker's DNA had hi-jacked his body and mind, J'onn was really the only one who could do anything. Mainly concerned with the memories Joker had blocked out.

J'onn had warned that Tim would be going down a dangerous path, since Joker didn't think like normal people and probably experienced many things in a different way. Any memories left over from after Terry destroyed the chip would probably be better left forgotten. It might even lead to more therapy than J'onn could accurately give.

But, Tim had talked this over with Stephanie, with Dick, and even with Kon, and had come to the fork in the road that he felt he just had to take the road less travelled. It was important to him to know what had happened. He didn't just want to know, he _needed_ to know, because, damnit, it was his body and his mind and for brief moments in time the Joker had somehow taken those things away from him and he wanted to know what happened. He just had this strange feeling that something important had taken place, some lingering piece of a dream he had experienced when the Joker had walked his body right up to his home and had been…Tim thought the clown had been angry, or even a little paranoid about something.

So J'onn had agreed to hypnotherapy. It was safer than the Martian himself going into Drake's head and if Tim was lying down on the weird little sofa in J'onn's quarters he would be less likely to move his arm, fist, leg or other body parts in a way that might lead him to try and hit J'onn or worse, himself.

_White fingers traced the outline of a white painted jaw as his other hand started unbuttoning the short shorts the elder Dee Dee wore. Joker's wide red smile moved languidly over Delia's collar bone, tongue tracing the fabric to the sixteen year old woman's tank top, tasting the perfume she had put on._

**The laughing gas plumed quickly and precisely out of the muzzle of the BANG gun and the all too muscular man's body hit the table hard, arms curving up and fingers sort of flexing as pupils dilated and laughter that was unnatural and practically music to Joker's ears left Bonk's body like a death rattle. Joker gave a malicious smile and made note that this was the way things were done in his day, dropping the gun backwards over his shoulder in such a nonchalant way.**

"Remember Tim, this was not your doing…Focus on your emotions being subdued in this situation…What's happening now…"

_The door that shut the two pale demons off from the rest of the factory opened with a loud bang and both parties glare at the mirrored face of white paint and broad smile (though this one wasn't quite right) as the other twin bounced into the room… "Ghoul found the tech! Just the way you wanted it boss!"_

**Bruce is still coughing on the floor, trying to resist the smile that the toxins he inhaled are forcing him to conform to. Joker skips around the whole of the Batcave, spraying all too familiar letters onto the walls, hands tossing a few things around here and there and making little comments of, "Oh, wouldn't Two-Face have loved this thing" or "Timmy didn't tell me you had a thing for dinosaurs" or "And the dummy is still as creepy as ever" but the thing that rings out in his mind most is "This isn't her real suit, neither of the gloves are ripped off." Before he heads over to the costume displays and black finger nails dig into the Robin suit.**

"Breathe, Tim…It's alright now…do you want to continue…"

**The Kid just doesn't know had to let him have a good time. Really, he'd have thought someone so young would allow an old man some entertainment… "Aren't you the nasty tattle-tale? Ratting me out before I've had my fun… Pappa spank!" Hands that are too thick and not at all wiry enough flip a few switches and the energy beam amplifies, chasing the little speck of a Batmobile through downtown Gotham. Cars smash this way and that and—oooohhh—a building gets cut in half!**

_"Just give me five minutes and I'll be ready, Dee Dee," the smoking hot, seemingly more energetic twin grins, giving Joker a nibble along the earlobe before bounding for the shared bathrooms to put back on her makeup. A short chuckle leaves his lips and he looks over the younger twin as he reclines on the bed. She looks at him with a smile that reminds him too much of the old days and asks, seemingly innocent to anyone else, "Boss?"_

"…Tim...Where are you now…"

"_What is it, Dee Dee?" the still very aroused creature asked back, turning on the bed so his front touched the covers and still too strong looking hands cup his chin, wicked grin always turned on and poisonous. The younger smiles back, but Tim, and he is there somewhere in the monster's mind, dormant but listening, because this is the part of the dream he remembers as Joker perceiving as a threat or a bribe or anything else that could go badly because he can't see the human element like Tim can, of a sister just trying to protect her sister, even when that sister doesn't want the help provided, "I was just wondering how your wife feels about you sleeping around with little girls?"_

* * *

Tim woke up from that particular session very restless. J'onn asked him to stay in the Watchtower for a little while, but Tim just wanted to go and see his wife. He was happy today, because he got a good answer for one of the questions not just plaguing him, but Stephanie as well.

He didn't sleep with Delia, and Joker only killed that one man. Tim could now disassociate from what that DNA sample and collective data-chip had done using his body. He could understand that the Joker had only used Tim's body like a meat puppet. There was Tim Drake and there was Joker's mind and DNA in a little smiley-face piece of technology now destroyed by a kid with a dead father, living mother, little brother.

He left the orbiting spacecraft and the first thing he did was buy a dozen roses, yellow and red, get some of Stephanie's favorite take-out. After which, he left for the house, knocked on the door and once his wife answered, he gave her the deepest kiss ever and smiled into it, because he hadn't cheated on her and it just felt so good to know she was there for him. The flowers and take-out were left haphazardly on the living room table as he and Stephanie made for their bedroom and had the best sex they'd had since before they found out he was being used as a pawn.

* * *

"…Is she alright?"


	15. Valentine's Fiasco

Disclaimer: I don't own Batman Beyond or any of the characters included from other DC universes added to this.

Warning: There will be blood this time around. The skittish should wait until the next chapter.

This takes place only a month after Deidre left and Delia claimed Gotham as her city. This is to assure my readers that I am trying to write the concept of evil when it takes the form of a woman. Just try and keep in mind that writing Joker is hard, but not so hard as writing for one of his kids.

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Valentine's Fiasco-;-

Barbara stared with an angry expression across her face at the many very important corpses the coroner had already brought into his freezing cold room. The man in charge had not started his work-up on any of them yet because there were still seven on their way here in vans they had left, being hauled by the only cops and medics that hadn't thrown up at the scene.

Nineteen casualties at one of the most important events of the year among Gothamites. Or, important to the rich and famous, anyway.

Blood was still pouring out of the cuts made to the lips of each victim, hideously wide and deceptively happy. Just like so long ago on the occasional nights that Joker was feeling more in the mood for blood rather than laughing gas. It made her sick to her stomach.

But this was worse. The festivities had been going all according to plan, until one by one, shrieks had rang out among the tables and security had been ordered to call in the police and every ambulance available. The thirteen richest men at the party had all started bleeding along their lips, grinning without want or need to, while simultaneously screaming out as parts of their body started falling off. A counselor's feet, a bureaucrat's tongue and ears, a politician's hands and teeth. The list went on and on.

When the police, lead in by herself had finally gotten there, a recording had started on the podium. It was Joker's Daughter, smiling that same red smile, eyes wide and feral as her own bone chilling laugh trickled in from the speakers.

"_Good evening, ladies and gentlemen of the Gotham elite. By now you are experiencing what it's like to go to pieces…or, at least some of you are. Now, to those of you in the service of protecting and serving the public—and I know you're there—you might want to get the rest of the guests out of there, because in the next," and here she looked at a wristwatch that was about the same size of a grown man's fist, ten other much smaller watches lining her arm on either end of it, "Two and a half minutes, I am going to light that penthouse view up like a Roman Candle. So, what'll it be? Save the living, or try and save the Intimacy Kit babies who are gonna die anyway?"_

Barbara had not been happy with what they did. Her men had gotten the women out, those being the only ones that weren't bleeding from some part of their bodies, and fled the building. The elevators had stopped working, the little screen that showed what floor the passengers were on being lit in an ugly grey color, with a red smiley face moving up and down, mouth opening to reveal a countdown. She had ordered them to take the stairs, but the women had broken a window and jumped down two stories to the next building, one of them missing, the other hitting the edge and cutting off her own leg, her friend hitting the ground head-first. The commissioner had ordered her men to keep that from happening again by circling the remaining women like wolves among cattle.

They had ten stories to go down, and on the fifth floor, the sprinklers had gone off. It wasn't water, though, it was a concoction of peanut oil and something she remembered smelling like a fish stall. Four of the women had broken into hives, turning red, along with one of her own men also breaking out. Allergic reaction.

By the time they got to the bottom and outside to be greeted by the ambulances, there was ten seconds remaining, and the women that were exposed to whatever had rained down had died from their allergies. Barbara's cop was still in critical condition at Mercy General.

When the clock time had completely run out, the penthouse had not gone up, but one of the screen's along the street had lit up, revealing Joker's Daughter for a second time. She was blowing on one of the old fashioned party favors, its length straightening into a long line, and a high whistle echoing through the room she was in—wherever that was.

"_Congratulations! You made it to the bottom with the lucky seven women. And by now, their hubbies and loverboys are in the same place as the not-so-lucky six women. I wonder if their Intimacy Kit partners across town faired so well with Batsy? Funny, don't you think it's more fun when the men go to pieces instead of the women?"_

Barbara could still clearly hear the mocking laughter as the feed to the screen cut out and she was rushing to one of the squad cars and calling in the station to see what the hell had happened.

Was this what it was like for her father? She had known what it was like as both Barbara Gordon and Batgirl, but she had never known how it felt to be this helpless when one of the Rogues was planning something new and dangerous and she had to deal with her squad and the soon-to-be victims at the same damn time. It was worse, she decided while waiting for someone at the station to pick up the phone, so much worse than being Batgirl. At least then, she felt she could really do something, because she had the best men in the world at her side or back. Now she was like her father. This was scary.

Composing herself, she turned around with a still rather grim expression and came face to face with Terry, Batman garb rather messed up and having the scent she could imagine chimney sweepers in old England smelling like just before that cooked to death by some negligent person who lit the fire when they were still cleaning the chimney. He was holding his side, breathing hard.

"What's your porn name?"

Barbara blinked and a rather inappropriate chuckle escaped her lips. That was not what she had expected to be the first thing he'd say, but leave it to the kid to surprise her.

"I take it you had a fun night with those poor women Joker's Daughter targeted?" She responded back, moving to lock the door for this conversation so that the tech she had sent out to analyze the chemicals the men drank before…going to pieces…couldn't interrupt.

"Oh, if only it were that simple," Terry groaned, leaning against one of the exam tables that had yet to be occupied by a smiling corpse, "Delia was talking the entire freaking time through the speakers while her thugs kept trying to shoot me with laughing gas. Throwing condoms full of toxins at my head. The Intimacy Set, she kept saying."

Barbara leaned against the door, head resting against the glass used to reveal the cold room from the hall, its cold touching through her hair and skin, "Hypocrisy and Bureaucracy is what Joker used to call it. He never did a stunt like this, though. He preferred playing with the men or women, but never both at the same time, and never to this degree."

"Lucky me," the teen growled, fiddling within one of the pockets his suit provided, pulling out a slip of paper with many tech-savvy words written on it, letters and numbers a person who didn't know what was going on could only hope to understand, "Here's the list of men and women most likely targeted next. She's going after the heavy players cheating on their wives with mistresses. Bruce and I linked them all to a hush-hush hotel that specializes in the staff keeping their mouths shut; Valentine B&B."

"Did she tell you why?"

She didn't see, so much as hear him stiffen under the suit, some broken bones making it less easy than it should have been, "…Because it's fun. That's what she said. That's what Chucko said. That's what everyone keeps telling me. That's their story and they're sticking to it."

"What a nightmare… And here I thought times had changed enough that Gotham wouldn't need "a better class of criminal" to chase after."

"Hey," he started, stopping his standing straight in favor of hissing at the pain in his gut, "I'll find a way to stop her. I promise."

Barbara smiled, "I think you really believe that. Too bad you don't have any help."

"Well, hopefully I will. Soon."

"Is this in the event that your little project isn't found in a ditch somewhere?"

"Don't say that!" Terry snapped, earning himself a rather amused look from the former first Batgirl. They both knew that it was a rather foolish endeavor to go looking for someone who was, as far as Bruce could gather, much smarter than Terry himself and did not want to be found. Plus, despite the fact that he had been saved by this particular person, there was the rather high possibility that she would not do it again, despite the words Harley had written that said otherwise.

But, Terry knew what he wanted, and who was Barbara Gordon to argue otherwise?

The commissioner sighed and grabbed the paper still held in Terry's hand, giving it a once over before turning back to the door, nonchalant and knowing, or hopefully knowing, what she would do once she left the room. Her hand unlocked the door and she couldn't help but think her words were being said to no one as they had so many times when she turned around and found nobody there.

"I'm hoping you survive this storm, kid."

Even as he talks back, she can tell he is moving, the air from the window passing over her coat on his way out, "I hope I do, too."


	16. The Black Swan

Disclaimer: I don't own Batman Beyond or any of its characters. I make no profit from writing this, other than my own entertainment.

I just had to get to the Jokerz boys this chapter for reasons I cannot entirely fathom, other than the need to be introducing Ghoul's girlfriend and Woof's…interest.

This takes place, eh, let's say about 2-3 weeks after the events of **Something Has Changed**. I'm not good with time-lines, so you can make up your own mind.

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Black Swan-;-

Sometimes—not often, though, and with long intervals in-between—Ghoul wishes he did drugs. Maybe then there would be something to take his mind off of how fantastically screwed over he was.

Sitting in their own misery in their own dark little booth at the end of a tiny little diner that they hadn't even known existed less than a week ago by the name of The Tick Tock, Ghoul and Woof were waiting for the food they had ordered from Ghoul's five-months-in-a-row girlfriend. They needed a break away from their gang and all that was going on from within it. What better way to do that than go out for food without telling or even better, asking, Delia where they were going.

Woof was decked out in his usual attire, but for occasions such as these when Ghoul wanted to see his lady, the grey skinned young man was wearing something else. Something that, despite his own denial of the fact, made him look even more attractive to those around: A rather form fitting black button-up shirt with the last two buttons left undone, a pair of faded blue jeans with the knees missing and frayed, and black steel tipped boots with the laces—despite being tied to their maximum positions—touching and dragging the floor. Simple, but oh so sexy.

While Woof was busy making…something, out of the plastic straws and toothpicks left at their table, and every other in the establishment, Ghoul was allowing the last month's events to fully wash over him as they waited for their food and his girl. His head was balancing in-between his hands, ashen blonde hair streaming over his fingers like dead ivy.

"Where did we go wrong, Woof?" Ghoul finally sighed, still maintaining his position.

_Hurr._

"I mean, things were going fine. Delia was still a psycho, but with Deidre there, it was more bearable, wasn't it?"

_Whine._

"Do you think that if I take that wanted poster off of the internet, maybe she'll come home?"

No sound came from Woof this time. Ghoul tilted his head up from his palms, the sweat coating them leaving impressions on his gaunt cheekbones, and looked to find that his friend had caught one of the tiny grey spiders that often hobbled around the corners of the diner just out of sight of the other customers. Its tiny legs scrambled in the air as Woof's claws held its middle. The Splicer looked to Ghoul, head cocked in a manner of query.

Ghoul sighed, and leaned back into the leather that was almost uncomfortably soft in the booths, "Let it go. No more violence for the day, alright?"

Claws released and both of them watched the seemingly grateful arachnid move with rather amusing speed across the table, over the edge, and disappear along the walls.

As Woof went back to playing with his toothpicks and straws, Ghoul was reminded of one of the stories Deidre had told them, by the scene that had just played out.

'_For the Night, though he is strong and cunning as a wolf or bird of prey, even he cannot kill the injured Cat or Other when it falls upon him in torment.'_

The memory allowed a subtle smile to creek up from his soul and he hardly noticed when a petite, warm shadow cast over himself and his friend until a crisp, beautiful voice started in greeting.

"And here we have your fruit salad with the side of dry garlic and lemon water, Ghoul. Although, why you bother watching your weight is beyond me when you couldn't gain weight if you tried. And for you Woof, we have your breakfast special of the things most likely to give you a heart-attack by the time you're thirty, red fish, eggs and enough miscellaneous meat to last until dinner. For normal people anyway…"

Both heads turned towards the woman—or girl, really—Woof considered to look like a 1940's-50's Noir actress, with her tendril-esque blonde hair, oceanic blue eyes, and her serving outfit of black skirt and white button-up shirt with the top button allowed open, giving the Splicer the correct feeling that Ghoul fulfilled his every carnal desire with her. She was smiling, and they smiled back to unburden her little hands of the food she came a carrying.

She smiled wider as Ghoul scooted over to allow her a moment of respite from her rather fast paced job, the manager having skulked back to his desk in the 'Way Back' as the staff called it.

"Melanie," Ghoul greeted, taking a little strawberry and offering it to her, her teeth nibbling it in acceptance, "Thank God you came back to deliver us from or melancholy and boredom and depression."

Woof nodded, taking his little toothpick and straw and offering it to Melanie—oh, it was a sunflower replica…

Melanie accepted the little thing from Woof, swallowing the strawberry and nudging Ghoul in the ribs, but only lightly as she knew he still had bruises from his last escapade, "Oh, Ghoul. Still moping over Deidre and bemoaning Delia?"

"…No?"

Melanie rolled her eyes, a motion made a little less comical than it was meant to because of her makeup, thus making her look more mature, "Oh, honey, it's not your fault. How many times must we go over this?"

"One more time, since you can explain it much better?"

She sighed, but as an obligation of a girlfriend to such a neurotic young man, sounded off the little chant that had been common place for the last few weeks, "It is not your fault Deidre left. It is not your fault Delia is a sociopath. It is not your fault you can't find the one other girl besides me that you ever went out with—"

"I never slept with her, I never kissed her, I swear."

"And it is not your fault that you can't quit the Jokerz, because 'her majesty' will probably have you executed as well, the bitch. Amen."

Ghoul wrapped both of his long arms around Melanie's tiny figure and gave her a squeeze, inhaling her jasmine perfume, "Thank you, you wonderfully intelligent girl."

As the two of them exchanged their moment of relationship worthy bliss, Woof rolled his eyes, but in doing so was made aware at the front of the diner a very handsome, familiar, young man.

The young man was, perhaps, the same age as Ghoul, or maybe even younger by a year or so, and Woof had seen him every time he had come into the place to order his and Ghoul's meals. He was tall, with gorgeous jet black hair and a goatee, always dressed in some elegant white or black shirt and Woof noted that whenever they were both in the diner, the man talked pleasantly with Melanie.

Woof had dubbed him The Black Swan, but had never spoken to him.

And the man was coming their way.

Without asking, Woof snatched up Ghoul's lemon water and downed it in one gulp, trying to get rid of the smell of fish and meat he had consumed. If he was ever, ever going to ask out the man, he wanted to be remembered as the guy who looked like a hyena, rather than the freak with bad breath. Much better chances of success that way.

When the Black Swan stopped in front of the group, Woof felt himself stiffen and waited for something to happen. When it did, it was surprising that he addressed Melanie as "Hello, sis."

Melanie turned about and blinked up at the young man for a moment before smiling, "Hello, Jack. You're here earlier than I thought you'd be today. Bad time last night?"

"A fucking nightmare," Jack—what a perfect name, Woof couldn't help thinking—answered back pleasantly, despite the apparent sarcasm dripping off of every word, "Who're your friends?"

"Well, you've met Ghoul," Melanie offered, leaning back into his wiry frame, his blonde hair lightly becoming entangled with hers to make a lovely spectacle, "So I assume you're asking about Woof here. This is Ghoul's best friend, and he is single, if that's what you really wanted to know."

Woof blushed a raging scarlet, just barely contained beneath his fur as Jack raised a brow and looked over at him. No, it couldn't be possible, he was never so lucky to be offered upon someone and accepted without really knowing the other. And even then…

Jack offered up his hand to shake, and Woof, tentatively accepted, head cocked to the side when Jack started speaking, "Red fish every morning with Rosemary sprig and any cheap pie every weekend, right?"


	17. Disinfect

Disclaimer: I don't own Batman Beyond or any characters originating from it.

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Disinfect-;-

Hand resting atop his living room coffee table, the other gripping the cane he still couldn't help but hate, Bruce stared with eagle eyes and impeccable scrutiny at the simple tin coffee can seemingly holding all of the secrets of the universe within its confines. The metal was grey, with little rust stains along the rim of the bottom and the faded paper pasted to the metal was a shadow of the words Breakfast Blend.

Distantly, he could hear the sounds of Barbara and Terry in the Batcave trying to treat their new…guest…for the numerous injuries she had been living with these past months, and a tiny little smile flitted over his lips for a brief moment.

Leaning a little forward, back protesting but becoming ignored as it always was, Bruce allowed his pointer finger to trace the outline of the coffee can's lid. Deidre had been rather adamant about leaving it upstairs when Terry had dragged her down to the cave to replace the stitching along her ribcage and apply clean gauze and Bruce had been more than a little surprised when she'd thrust it into his arms and told him not to drop it. Well, actually, not to drop _her_, but Bruce tried not to think about it like that.

A large gust of wind entered the manor, followed by the opening and closing of the front door with a double click, and Bruce removed his hand from the can, back returning to the chair's leather, the anticipation of two particular speedsters interrupting his sentimentality.

"So, is the little lady giving you any problems?"

"Not really…" Bruce sighed, grip along the handle of his cane loosening and then tightening just enough to make him feel comfortable again.

Wally chuckled at the unusual tone that was rather similar to sarcasm in Bruce's voice. Barry stood off to the side as his grandfather took a chair on the other end of the table in the chance to have a better conversation with the original Dark Knight than he had back in Kansas. Wally was probably the only person other than Clark who could get under Bruce's skin in a friendly way, and the newest Flash didn't want to interrupt.

Pale green eyes glanced over at Barry and Bruce not so much suggested as ordered, "Go downstairs and help out Terry and Barbara."

"With the sexy girl?"

It hadn't been that long a time since Bruce had used the Bat-glare, but he always tended to use it a lot more on the Wests. As such, Barry sped away when Bruce not only administered said glare, but held up his cane as if to skewer the redhead with it.

"You remember who her 'uncle' is," Bruce called after the laughing youth, teeth bare; "Crane'll skin you alive if she asks him so. You know he will!"

Bruce shook his head a little at the burst of energy granted to him by the unfounded indignity he always felt when the young man entered (or left) a room with him. So much like Wally in his ways that Bruce couldn't help it; rather like he couldn't help trading barbs with Terry, given their time together.

Turning back to the aged speedster, Bruce felt his mouth dry up and his bones go rigid. Wally was holding the coffee can curiously, having already opened the lid and was sniffing at the grayish green insides, little pieces of whatever it was were rolling around in little balls at the top, no bigger than black beetles. Bruce was unsure whether he should panic or laugh.

"Bats, what the heck is this?" he asked curiously, both hands tipping the can to and fro as his green eyes observed the little balls of whatever roll against the metal, "Some kind of new tea that your company is endorsing?"

Bruce settled for a light chuckle in the back of his throat, "Not even close."

"So then, what?"

"Those are the rest of Harley's ashes."

The effects of the words were instantaneous, if not expected. Wally's eyes widened and the can dropped from his hand and onto the table, ashes and ashes wafting up for a second like Harley herself was trying to wiggle to life and laugh at his expense, but settled back within the confines as Wally put the lid back on.

Wally twiddled his fingers at the awkward silence and then tilted his head at the sort of melancholy half-smirk that rarely graced Bruce's features.

"I…Sorry, Bats."

"Mm, it's fine," he sighed, the smirk fading to a shadowed smile that couldn't be categorized, "There's no shame in dying."

"I suppose not. Have there been any leads in way of her…investigation?"

"No, not yet. There are over nine-thousand Jokerz through the country, organized into over two-hundred small groups and Barbara and I are still narrowing down who would be savage enough to do that to Qui—to Harley. Not all of them are in the system and considering most are teenagers, it's going to take a while."

Wally nodded, graying red hair, still long in his age, moving with the motion, "Well, if there's anything the League can do…"

"Yes, I know."

Searching for a change in subject, Wally leapt at the sound of the goings on downstairs; insults being thrown by an airy voice and McGinnis' voice ringing out as well, trying to calm the other, as Barry laughed and Barbara came into the living area shaking her head, carrying a kettle of what smelled like fresh brewed coffee on a carrier tray with a triple set of cups.

Wally grinned up at the white haired ex-Batgirl, accepting the cup she had already poured him, "How's it going with the Bat clan's little project?"

Crisp blue eyes gave a half-hearted glare, but a smile followed the motion, rather lackluster, but there all the same as she poured Bruce a cup, adding a sugar cube, "Oh, fabulous."

* * *

Holding the lasso length gauze in hand, Terry tried and failed to figure out where he had gone wrong in stating he was going to fix Deidre up himself. Taking her down to the Batcave had not been a mistake, she'd obviously known the layout and was interested in looking at the various pieces of history in their glass cases. She wasn't afraid of Ace when he came to inspect her (his tail had been wagging a mile a minute and he let her _pat_ his head, _the traitor_). She had even taken a seat on the metal table when Barbara had asked and removed her shirt because she had admitted she may need a band-aid or two to be replaced.

Perhaps the mistake had been when Terry gagged at the sight under the shirt. A large area of her stomach had a blackish purple bruise that would fit the grill of a truck perfectly, the ribs on her left side were either cracked or broken (he couldn't even tell) and there were cuts and burn marks all over her that were hovering between being healed or very fresh, even under her bra.

Barbara hadn't said a word as she took the shirt and handed it to the young Batman, her experienced hands finding the disinfectant and started applying it to the fresh wound that weren't too deep, but Terry couldn't help but take note of the differences from Deidre now and a few months ago.

She didn't have the same curves she had months ago, the need to eat properly having been passed over for survival, leaving her looking like she'd been a balloon that had deflated week by week until she had just enough to keep going. Not to say she didn't have muscle, she'd have to in order to complete those rather acrobatic maneuvers she'd tried to use to get away from him in Kansas, it's just that he really had to look to find it. He was amazed, though, that her legs had sustained the least amount of damage in her travels; only small scratches on her knees and cuts that must have been from running in the woods or something of the like. And then there was her hair, which had always been long, but now looked like it could compete with Rapunzel, reaching her heels unless tied up.

He wasn't aware that she had noted his staring until she snapped her fingers at him, remarking that it wasn't polite to ogle.

She had been quiet afterwards, allowing the disinfectant to do its work…right up until Barry came down and wolf-whistled. That had been ill-timed, as Barbara was done with her work and had backed away to take the coffee she'd brought down up to Bruce and Wally, leaving Deidre in full view of the speedster, and the redhead's wide grin in view of the blonde.

Barbara had ordered that gauze be applied to Deidre, and Terry realized that his offering to do it at all, was_ the_ most probable of reasons that set the blonde off.

Now she was standing on top of the giant penny kept in the cave, and didn't seem all that interested in coming down.

"Come on darling," Terry tried to say with as much affection as he could without sounding fake, "I won't try anything, I swear!"

"Like you didn't try and tackle me back in Smallville?" Deidre snarked down at him, hair having fallen over her shoulders to make her feel decently covered up.

"You were going to drive off in that car or run into the cornfield for God's sake!"

"And you know why!"

"We're superheroes," Terry defended, handing the gauze to a rather amused Barry and started grabbing at the penny to climb upwards, "We don't turn people into their former gang so they can die. We try and prevent that."

"Don't come up here."

"I'm coming up."

"I don't need your help."

Apparently, they had somehow meandered into her trust issues somewhere in this conversation.

"Forgive me if I think you do, darling."

She groaned, but continued to simply watch him as he tried to pull himself up the slick copper surface, "…So, maybe I do need help, but that doesn't mean I should accept it. I probably don't deserve it anyway."

"Why's that? You seem like a good person. Good people deserve any help that they need."

"I'm not a good person."

Terry blinked at the suddenly rather empty sound of her voice. A bad and sure sign that she really believed this statement, and he took his place just a foot next to her. He didn't like it when people said things like that, argued their own self worth.

"You saved my life, I'd say that's pretty good."

"…"

"Look, I say it's like this: you followed your sister, your friends, into a bad situation, and you couldn't get out. Now that you are out, why not make the best of it, instead of running around the country getting shot at?"

"That's not the only reason I'm running around."

"Right," he amended, "You're also visiting family. Nothing wrong with that, considering you haven't done anything wrong by giving them flowers."

"It's true," Barry spoke up from the spinning chair before the Batcomputer, his red hair flying with the motions of the spins and making him look very immature…as if that weren't obvious already, "Professor Crane was really happy after you left, too. It was scary, but then, we all thought that his smiling was a sign of catastrophe. Nothing like a tornado or earthquake happened, so now at least we know you being around the Rogues isn't a bad thing, so much as a cause of a silver lining along dark clouds."

Both the Gotham born teens looked down at Barry with equal looks of "what are you talking about?"

"Plus, you're like, really pretty."

"And really younger than you," Deidre put in, though Terry did note the blush she was trying to hide as her hair took its place before her right eye again. Good sign.


	18. Ecstasy

Disclaimer: I do not own Batman Beyond or any characters that are the result of the series, unless it is an OC, which, heh, anyone interested can _have_, since I loathe any that are my creation. And I make no money from this.

Okay, this round goes to Delia, since I finally had a plot bunny for her drop this on my doorstep. Oh, and to anyone who cares, the design for this little imp's ensemble is based solely off of Joker. It's basically just his purple suit jacket, his green undershirt thing, the squirting flower and Delia's short-shorts in the same purple, with her same knee high boots, also purple. Still working on Deidre's.

This chapter is also dedicated to Ghoul'sLegion, whose fanwork has been tremendously inspiring for this fic. Go read them!

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Ecstasy-:-

It had finally started to snow.

Gotham winters generally came early and lasted for an endless eternity for those who didn't like them. The snow was always discolored and heavy with water that pelted down on the populace, making the roads intolerable and dangerous and their clothes heavy and constantly in need of being taken to the dry cleaners.

Still, once and a while, the snow was pristine and perfect, clinging to anything it could and just made everything look beautiful, even in Gotham's ugliness.

Legs that went on for days and lacking anything to cover them but some acidic green short-shorts and knee high boots walked with ease into one of Gotham's parks that were always inhabited by children running around, being followed by their parents and having a grand old time. The place was empty, though, at this time of night (three in the morning), which left it completely open for conversation among the dangerous individuals entering.

However, the shivering individuals behind the first weren't really hung up on the clean beauty. They were ordered to stay still once they got to the swings and not touch anything while their…Queen, leader, boss of all that they were, had her own fun and reigned a controlled havoc during this meeting.

The three cameras attached to the light posts surrounding the area had already been blown out, so Delia could go about her business as Chucko shivered behind her, a datafile quaking in his hands as he started spouting off the things that meant something to him and the rest of the gang behind him, but very little to Delia.

"…Anyway, Ghoul figured in that with the drugs and the arms we got our hands on, we could triple the finances within the month and gain about twelve more connections. The Falcones and Thorns have sent feelers out, looking for some muscle from us on some of their own buys, but I needed to clear it with you first. What do you think?"

White fingers with the nails on all of them painted different colors (acid green, blood red, magenta and black in splotches like they were dabbed at by a drunk) carefully sculpted from the fallen snow a sort of bowl looking thing. Delia, with the red smile constantly in place, prodded at the white, before reaching into the brown sack she had brought along, and filled the snow pot with mushy, ever bruised tomatoes, only just acknowledging Chucko.

"Mm, have the Falcone's give us a few dozen shotguns—the old kind, Chucko, they do so much more damage than laser, how tacky—and make sure we get two whole keys of their E and slappers and they can have their muscle. But, Chucko,"

Pressing the snow on top of the tomatoes until it was flat, Joker's Daughter rolled up a whole ball of snow and placed it for the torso, then started up a bowel shape for the head and more tomatoes. Chucko waited for her to continue, attentive as Dot and Scab walked around behind him, grumbling about the cold.

"I want you to go with them on their buys. Record everything that happens. I think something good could come from this, don't you?"

Unconsciously, Chucko swallowed some of the spit that had built up in his throat. He knew what Delia was insinuating here. She was thinking something spectacular, like the Valentine's thing, and he wasn't actually supposed to answer. Just keep his mouth shut and nod as she topped off the rest of the snowman, complete with stone eyes, carrot moth, a jester's cap she had stolen from one of J-Man's crew and stick arm.

Standing back for a moment, Delia grinned at her work and picked up her bag of goodies, moving for the swing set and jungle-gym. Her arm swayed back towards the masked man, and he followed.

She set the bag down, after fishing out a dime bag and Chucko went back to speaking, eyes watching her from behind his mask's eye holes, "What do you want us to do about the Thorn's, exactly? Do we do the same thing with them?"

Nimble fingers fiddled inside the bag's plastic and Delia brought forth some of the white ecstasy in the bag, started sprinkling it along the bars of the jungle-gym, just atop the snow that everyone who had ever been a child had always licked when first snow came, to taste the cold, "No. Ignore them. I want to see what happens with them and the Falcone's. After the Falcone's make their buy, go to the Thorn's and then offer them for triple the price. If they don't go for it, be sure to blow up that nice set of apartments that they've been leasing to their more, heh, presentable clients."

"…Kay. What if Batman shows up at the buy?"

Delia sighed more or less darkly at the mention of the common enemy, finishing the dime bag upon the snow of the swing set, tossing it over her shoulder and moving back to her bad of goodies, "Chucko, baby,"

"Yes?"

She pulled a handheld revolver, old but in good working condition, from her bag and clicked off the safety, first pointing it vaguely in Dot's direction, then Scab's and then finally at the tomato on the inside snowman, with its smiling face pushed just right so it wouldn't fall apart…

"You should really know the answer to that by now."

She pulled the trigger and with the rather loud feedback noise, the snowman's middle and bottom half were shot. The result was the head falling right off and onto the ground, falling upon the residue of the tomato juice rushing out of the bottom half and the smile of the face breaking open. It looked like a murdered snowclown.

Chucko got the message.


	19. Shopping

Disclaimer: Batman Beyond is owned by the good people at DC Animated, Warner Bros. Blah, blah, blah.

I realized last night that I haven't had Max in this yet. This seems unfair, and thus, I have this chapter to make up for it. Takes place a day or two after Disinfect. Enjoy!

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Shopping-;-

Max was not surprised to see Terry just after school with a nervous look on his face and in every gesture of his body, but this was a little…different. Like he was being followed or spied on or something really discomforting that came in his line of work that she had only just come to understand to some minor extent.

"I need to borrow some of your clothes."

…Okay.

The pink haired computer expert raised a brow and gave a rather dry answer of, "I don't think they'd fit you," as she cleared the door and motioned him in.

"Hah, hah," he replied, just as dry as he made for her bedroom, "They're not for me."

"And if they were for Dana, she would have asked me herself, so who're they for?"

Opening the door to Max's room, Terry suddenly lost what little bravery he had on spotting the dirty clothes hamper in the corner. A pair of the girl's pink heart printed bras was stationed on top and he seemed to lose all of his steam and parked atop Max's bed, dropping his head in his hands and giving a rather pathetic groan.

While the current Batman growled and tried to start talking again, Max smiled and made for her clothes in the closet. He'd start talking again in a moment, but she didn't want to just stare at him until it happened. Might as well see what there was for there to loan that she wouldn't be embarrassed by.

"Um," Terry finally spoke up, one hand dropping into his lap while the other continued to support his head, "You remember that project I was working on?"

A cappuccino colored hoodie was tossed Terry's way, with tiny little pink petals decorating the shoulders in ink as Max answered back, "You'll have to be a bit more specific, McGinnis. Are we talking a school project or a night time project?"

"Night time."

"With the Rogues or the Old Man?"

Terry scratched the back of his head, feeling a little guilty for some reason about telling Max about this. Telling her the truth could lead to a complication in her life that she just didn't need, but then, if he didn't tell her, he'd actually have to go shopping for the clothes, and then Dana might find one of the receipts, and then nobody was happy.

"The project with a blonde ex-Joker."

Max then came fully out of the closet, eyes wide and hands holding a pair of draw-string paints, light green in color, with slight fraying near the ankles that always looked good on her, but she hadn't worn since she'd been hanging out with Terry. Her jaw had dropped a little and Terry assumed words were trying to get out of her throat with the intent to grill him for all he was worth.

When the words finally did come, she retreated back into the closet, a frown she didn't want him to see coming to her face like when she was contemplating an important problem in class. It wasn't that she disapproved Terry taking in strays; it's just that when he'd started looking, she hadn't thought he'd actually find the girl. Or, she hadn't thought he'd find the girl alive; after all, that wanted poster on the internet set up by that freak who had knocked Dana around at the club had been getting quite large in illegal circles, the price on the girl's head growing exponentially every week. Max had come to think the girl must be quite dangerous if she was to be hunted and brought back alive for so much, and she worried for Terry.

"Where'd you find her?"

"In Kansas, of all places. She was…uh, well she was taking flowers to a certain League member and his wife on behalf of Harley. Quinn wrote a long apology note to each of them and Deidre had been playing delivery girl."

"How'd she react to seeing you?"

A red Cardigan sweater and a pair of black bell-bottom pants joined the pile on the bed as Terry answered, a tiny chuckle escaping his mouth, "She kinda freaked out. She dropped the flowers in my arms and bolted for her car, but then I handed the flowers to Ba—the new Flash, and tackled her. She got loose, made for the cornfield around the property, tried to hide, but got caught by Wa—the old Flash. She did not like that. It took us like an hour to get her in the house and convince her we weren't going to kill her or something."

"Sounds charming," Max smiled, allowing the image to settle in her mind, "How does she look?"

Terry allowed himself a moment to think on how to answer that, a pair of heeled black shoes almost hitting him in the face in the process, "Lousy. The months have not been good to her."

"How so?"

Terry starting counting off, "Let's see: She's half the weight she was when she left, there's bruising all along her body, there's evidence that she's been run over at least once if not multiple times by various vehicles, her nerves are shot, she's been sleeping in her car or the cheapest hotels she can find, there are bones that have been broken for a while that need setting, she's been shot and there are bullet fragments that are still under her skin and burns on her arm that I just know are from Blight when she left."

"…Ow. Did she let you fix her up?"

"More or less. The problem is that she doesn't seem to take narcotics very well. The pain meds amplify her discomfort and sedatives keep her awake. The only thing that worked was Tylenol 3, and even then, she would only let me reset the bones with a lot of convincing. The boss thinks that being a descendent of Joker and Harley combined is what screwed up her chemistry so bad."

Max contemplated how the blonde would look in Max's hot pink tank top with the blue stripes for a moment before asking absently, dismissing the top, "Where is she now? The Watchtower or Metro Tower?"

Terry snorted, "Are you kidding? I'm pretty sure that Warhawk _would_ kill her if I brought her to either."

"So, where…?"

"Um, we took her to the Manor. She seems to like it since Quinn gave her the layout of the place."

"Comfort through familiarity," Max thought aloud, remembering a little article in school about animals being introduced into new habitats, "So, why is she borrowing my clothes?"

"I looked over the clothes she had, and they are really, really old. I think she took some of Harley's clothes before leaving from when Quinn was, like, twenty. None of it could be younger than you and me combined, and if I'm gonna start taking her out for any reason, like training or something, I'd like her to not stand out. Nothing draws other people's attention like vintage Donna Karen and Vera Wang."

Max rolled her eyes, but could see his point, "What is she doing now? Training with the Flash, or Bruce?"

Terry sighed, standing from the bed to help Max wrestle a long sleeved sweater away from its twin, the arms somehow knotted together. Max suspected her sister had something to do with it.

"No. Last I was with her, the reality of her actually being back in Gotham had set in and she was having a massive panic attack. She was riding it out by baking the best cookies and cake I have ever tasted, I swear to God."

"Is it really smart to leave her with the old man…alone?" she questioned hesitantly, but got the point across. Terry raised a brow at her.

"It's fine. She's not likely to hurt anyone. I mean, I physically tackled her in Kansas and the only reason she got loose is because she's, like, double-jointed and fast. She didn't hit me, or try to, at all when I was fixing her up, either. Bruce is fine…"

"I'm assuming there's a 'but' around the end of that trailing off?"

He gave her a huffy glare as they went over all of the clothes on the bed and started folding them up neatly, "…but, I don't have to worry. Both the Flash boys keep coming over. The older one to bother the old man, and the younger one to try and hit on Deidre. You should come over and watch him fail spectacularly and, you know, help me talk to her."

"What makes you think she'll talk to me?"

"Maybe that came out wrong," he amended, hefting up all of the clothes in his arms and headed towards the front door, "You should come over and help me make sure that the Flash doesn't go too far in his flirting, before she really does call one of her relatives to have him whacked."

Pausing in the door between indecision and curiosity to meet yet another superhero, Max opened the door and didn't even brake stride following after Terry, "Why not, I've got time to spare."


	20. Don't Kill the Hermit Crab

Disclaimer: I do not own Batman Beyond or any of its characters. I make no money writing this either. Blah-bitty-blue-blah mega pfft!

I find myself writing a lot in reference to Terry and Deidre for the same reason I like writing for Bruce and Harley, because I think they work quite well together…or would, in any case. This just came out of the blue when I was contemplating Matt and Terry's relationship and what would happen if Deidre of met the mini McGinnis.

Oh, and to anyone who cares, from here on out, try to imagine Deidre always, always, always wearing long sleeves wherever she goes in red or black. Since I'm portraying Delia with Sex in the City's Samantha's figure of the ultra sexy, I'm trying to portray Deidre with Charlotte's conservative look…plus, I imagine all the beatings the younger twin has gotten would lead to some questionable markings… Heh, enjoy this chapter!

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Don't Kill the Hermit Crab-:-

Removing his shoes from his feet in the rather fluid motion of just kicking them off (the muddy bastards deciding they wouldn't anger his mother by hitting anything but the tiled floor before the door this time, thank God) Terry pulled in the equally sopping wet blonde into his shared apartment. Deidre was panicked as hell to be walking around mid-day, but she still had enough sense to take off her shoes as well (the rather petite, yet sodden things having no issue in causing her further misery today and simply lining up right next to the door like leather soldiers).

"Well, uh, you can take off your coat and I'll just…yeah…"

He didn't need to further explain what he was to do with the clothing. Both knew that he would take them into the laundry room, stuff them into the washing machine, use the maximum amount of detergent and then just hope for the best that the smell of sewer and pond would come out.

Blue eyes rolled at the brunette's nervousness, but did as asked, peeling her black business coat off of her tiny frame as he took off his brown one that he regularly wore, "Okie dokie. And should I just stand here in the doorway, or what?"

"Uh, take a left into the kitchen, go into the end hall and you'll find a closet with all of our towels," Terry called back over his shoulder as he disappeared into the hall to the laundry room, "Grab some for both of us. And while you're doing that, maybe you can find a way to explain why you tore ass out of that alley and into that open ended sewer opening."

Deidre frowned a little at his tone, but did as he asked (ever the good, obedient dog, she couldn't help scoffing at herself,) weaving fingers through her hair to fish out the leaves and paint chips that had infested her head when they'd traversed the systems and ended up having to slide into a duck pond through a crooked tunnel, much to the surprise of a pair of much younger teens smoking right above where the two of them came out.

She tried not to flinch at the sounds of her tights squishing and leaving little watery footprints through Terry's kitchen, and took note of the place. She knew he still had a mother, but he had also informed her that he had a little brother, so she had expected there to be a little evidence of such lying around in the forms of water rings from left out glasses of soda, or some unattended dishes in the sink, or even forgotten bits of chocolate or cinnamon cereal lying about. But there was nothing. The place was clean, and as she stepped into the hallway, the closet was just hiding along the seams of the arch into the kitchen, like an oak motif wearing spy.

She opened the door and had to stifle a snort at the towels on the very top of the stack; three blue and black colored terry cloth towels, all with Batman symbols decking them. They were too small to actually be purchased for the Dark Knight just a room away from her though, so this was the first bit of proof that there was indeed a child living here with Terry. She continued to smile though, grabbing two of the much bigger red towels at the bottom of the stack, and wrapping one around her head like a turban and one on her shoulders to get the itchy water out of the clothes she would not take off. She did grab two of the Bat decorated towels for Terry, though.

Thinking of the variety of things she could comment on about the drying cloth, Deidre almost didn't hear the tell-tale patter of much smaller feet than either of them, followed by healed clicking and the door re-opening.

The mother and the brother. Whoop-de-freaking-doo.

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"Mom, this is really starting to hurt."

Mary McGinnis, arms full of grocery bags, nodded at her youngest son, and quickly set the bags on the counter in the kitchen, taking note of Terry's boots, but not noticing the other pair that was far too out of the way in its own order for her to even see.

While Mary called out to Terry, telling him they were home, Matt was still holding the wrist of one hand with his other. Attached to the injured hand, a little grey shelled crab was squeezing the skin just leading up to the young boy's thumb as hard as it could, dribbles of blood becoming even more apparent with each moment. It had been that way for over an hour, and although tears were beginning to build up behind his eyelids, he had not cried yet. This was embarrassing enough, since his mom had said they'd have to get Terry to get it off, Matt wasn't going to cry in front of his brother. He'd never hear the end of it.

The tallest McGinnis came into the living room from the laundry room, and Mary would have complimented him on finally getting to that large pile growing in his room, if the smell clinging to Terry hadn't gotten her attention much faster. Matt would have said something almost on cue, but he didn't want to irritate Terry when he needed his help. Plus, his brother looked just this side of nervous about something and would probably get reamed by mom later one way or another.

Mary placed a hand over her nose and mouth when Terry shuffled her way, eyes looking from room to room and anywhere but at the two of them, "Hey, mom…you weren't supposed to be home so soon."

"Terry, why do you smell like a dumpster?" the redhead asked from behind her hand, momentarily forgetting Matt, even as he took a seat at the kitchen's table, "And why are you all wet?"

Terry scratched the back of his head, "Funny story, actually. But, I asked you first."

Mary frowned at her eldest, but turned to point at Matt, taking Terry's arm to lead him to face her youngest directly, "Remember how two days ago I agreed that Matt could have a pet, as long as it was small and could live in a tank?"

"Yeah," Terry nodded, finally noticing that Matt was clutching his hand and trying to hide it from view under the table, which kind of worried the teen, seeing as his brother's eyes were also turning red and moist.

Mary crouched down beside Matt and moved Matt so he couldn't hide his hand anymore, revealing to Terry the tiny hermit crab that was actually causing Matt to bleed a little more as the motion startled it, and it pinched even harder. Terry didn't like that half of Matt's hand was red from the pain, as well.

"Jeeze, how long has it been like this?"

Matt shrugged, but immediately regretted the motion, the crab tightening up again and causing him to yelp, "Can you get it off? I don't want to go to the hospital."

"Yeah, sure, just let me get a towel for the…blood…um," Terry chewed his lip and looked in the direction of the hall closet, slight indecision painting his figure.

"What is it?" Mary asked, looking where Terry was.

Terry sighed, "Um, I brought a friend here. One second."

Terry got up from the crouch he had settled into to look over Matt and practically bolted into the hall.

Both Mary and Matt followed Terry with their eyes and gave a questioning look back at each other when Terry spoke in a hurried, hushed tone with a voice neither one of them had ever heard. Followed rather swiftly by Terry coming back out of the hall with a forced smile and a very skinny girl wearing Mary's favorite red towels on her head and shoulders, imprinted with the exact same smell as Terry.

Mary couldn't help one of her eyebrows rising at the sight.

Terry continued to give a fake smile, stiff and attempting to seem natural as he introduced the girl, her removing the towel from her head to show wet and extraordinarily long blonde hair and looking nervously at Mrs. McGinnis, "Mom, Matt, this is Deidre. She works for Mr. Wayne's ex-wife, Commissioner Gordon. Or, she will be, anyway."

"It's nice to meet you Deidre," Mary greeted, not moving from beside Matt as Terry moved back to him to try and get the crab off, the youngest McGinnis momentarily eyeing the girl, "I'm Terry's mother. Are you a friend of his?"

"Sorta," Deidre spoke finally, eyeing back at Matt as the boy bit his lip when Terry tried to pry his nail along the crab's pinchers without any success, "More like occasional acquaintances. Something wrong with Matt?"

Mary blinked. The girl knew Matt's name, so that must have meant that Terry knew her long enough to tell her about his family. It was still unnerving that Terry had not told her a thing about this young woman, but perhaps they could explain later. After Terry got the crab off of Matt and ceased to smell like garbage.

Terry gave a low growl and let go of Matt to stand up and head for the drawer nearest the sink that held the knives and scissors, "Yeah, it looks like the little bugger's gonna get cut off."

Matt, suddenly even more nervous asked in a practically frantic voice, "Cut off? But, won't he die from that?"

"I'm sorry Matt," Terry spoke over his shoulder, still looking through the cutlery, "But it doesn't look like it'll come off on its own."

"But-but-but-" suddenly Matt looked crestfallen, a look both Mary and Deidre felt bad about, one from motherly instincts and one from pity, "We can't kill Herman!"

"Sorry, buddy," Terry said, finally removing the scissors to come back and crouch before him, "But, you could get an infection if we don't get it off."

Before Matt could say anything, or Terry could even slide the scissors near the tiny creature, however, a pair of dainty hands clasped around Terry's much bigger ones. Thereupon, Terry looked up across the table to find Deidre giving a rather showy smile at him…no, at Matt. Her blue eyes gleaming optimistically.

"No need to do that," she said sweetly, taking the scissors and setting them onto the table, "Just get a large bowel from your cupboard and fill it with cold water. Then give it to me."

Raising a brow in a similar way to his mother, Terry did as asked. He got a clear blue, glass bowel from the cupboard and filled it with water, silently watching the blonde hold Matt's hand and offer quiet, encouraging words.

Terry moved back to the table and handed Deidre the bowel. She took it and smiled again at Matt, placing his hand into the bowel, shaking it a little to explain, "You just have to remember that he's probably just scared. He just needs a little encouragement and familiarity and…"

At this point, as his hand was splashing in the water, making a little whirlpool, like magic, the crab let go and floated to the bottom. It skittered around for a few seconds, before settling in the center, much to everyone (except apparently Deidre's) amazement.

Mary gave a little laugh, taking the bowel and setting it on the counter, "Matt, what do we say to that, huh?"

Matt grinned at Deidre, causing her to blush in humility as she also tried to ignore the Cheshire grin Terry was directing at her, "Thanks. You're way smarter than my brother."

Deidre tried, but failed, to reign in a short bark of laughter. Which caused her to bring both hands up and cover her mouth. Which caused Terry to smile wider.

He was _so_ right about her.


	21. Morning Cuisine

Disclaimer: I don't own Batman Beyond and make absolutely no money from writing this.

* * *

Morning Cuisine-:-

Snorting air out of his lungs as he did every time he awoke from sleep, in a strange bed or not, Woof felt the familiar ache from below his waist flare up and remind him that he was indeed in someone else's bed. For perhaps the first time since just a little before getting the OD of hyena splice.

Entwining his clawed fingers within the cover of the pillow covering the side of his face, Woof blinked at the light coming in from the rather large window with the shades drawn. The smell from beyond the door, however, is what really got him up and ready to move, despite the way his ass kind of hurt from even the simple motion of shuffling over the bed to find his boxers.

It didn't take as long as it would have in his own place to find his underwear, as it were, Jack had apparently been thoughtful enough to set them on his desk, right next to the lit stick of Summer Surf incense. The smell wafted up into Woof's nose and he had to suppress a whine that came with the urge to dive back into the little bout of guilty depression that had led him to wandering into Jack's den in the first place. He was really starting to hate incense lately.

Snatching his boxers up, Woof wiggled into the black fabric and moved from the room without giving the smoking stick another thought as long as he could help it.

Padding out of the bedroom, Woof enjoyed the lack of creaking from the wooden floorboards as he passed over them. It was nice to wander into the kitchen to eat eggs and bacon with your lover without the present fear of falling through the floor, like at the rat festering dump Delia had moved them into last week. Not that he didn't like his own room, but all the people Joker's Daughter kept bringing in made him increasingly uncomfortable and hostile towards anyone that moved. That, and the fact that Ghoul was spending more and more time with Melanie left him feeling, well…depressed.

Shaking his head from the negative thoughts, Woof finally stalked into the kitchen, the sandy crap in his eyes being pulled out by his thumb nail.

The sight awaiting him was enough to stop him in his tracks and admire the view.

Of course, Thursday, Jack didn't work and had nowhere to be unless his sister called. There was no reason for him to wear anything but his birthday suit. As evidenced by his making the eggs Woof had been smelling, with nothing but a spatula in hand and a smile on his face.

Jack's hair was pristine, though dripping wet from a shower Woof had not heard, and little droplets clung to the silk black locks, and the lines of his shoulders and back, making him look like a Greco Roman god carved from marble come to life. That, and the little tune he was muttering to himself made Woof have to hold himself back from dropping his boxers again and pouncing on the aristocratic young man.

Not even noticing Woof's shadow on the stove as he turned around, Jack moved freely and gracefully with the pan of eggs and deposited the yellow and white fluffy bits and pieces onto two individual plates. They settled into the center of each plate and Jack grinned, setting down the pan back on the stove and gathering pepper and tobasco sauce. He then added the condiments to their respective plates, a plentiful round of black grounded pepper for Jack and enough tobasco to kill a normal person with normal taste buds for Woof.

In doing this simple, every day thing, Jack finally leaned back up to admire his work and noticed Woof.

As seemed to be the way of all of their mornings together, Jack grinned even wider at the Splicer and gave a fake yawn, stretching out muscles that made him look even better than he already did and making Woof bite the inside of his mouth.

"Morning," Jack greeted, picking up a pair of sliced pieces of melon that Woof hadn't noticed hiding behind a pitcher of orange juice, "Did you have a good sleep, Woof?"

White eyes blinked and Woof nodded, completely forgetting the pain in his lower back. Now he was more focused on keeping certain urges of his lower front in check. Preferably and most effectively by moving further into the kitchen to sit at the table and accept one of the melon slices, thrusting it into his mouth and biting down.

"Any bad dreams?" Jack questioned, as he always did when he sat down across from the younger male, slight worry being masked by the fact that Woof was failing to look him directly in the eye, trying much too hard to control his breathing and drool and the blush the was still just barely there along his ears in a scarlet red, "I heard you making those cute little whines and your legs were twitching."

Swallowing the melon slice whole, Woof shrugged his shoulders. He didn't want to discuss such things so early in the A.M. with his boyfriend, if he did, he was usually irritable all day and when he went back to that dump of a base of Delia's and that was never good while actually working with the green haired psycho. It could get his head blown up or earn him a permanent smile on his face, depending on whether she was in a bad mood of her own.

So, in a classic distraction maneuver, Woof started devouring his eggs and his right leg moved around under the table. The appendage then brushed along the inside of Jack's thigh, earning the spotted young man a groan from the taller man.

"Mmm, that's nice…It's your only trick for changing this subject, but it's nice."

Woof gave a low whine. A sort of mock warning to let the subject drop and Jack sighed, shrugging his shoulders and smiled as he started in on his own eggs. The pepper tended to soak into the milk his cooked in with the eggs if he didn't eat them right away, anyhow.

"Fine," Jack uttered once more, his own legs following Woof's lead, but keeping to just below his boyfriend's ankle to tease, "Don't tell me. But, we're talking about this sooner or later. Suppressing emotion isn't good."

Woof held the spoon with the eggs on it to his tongue and gave the Jack one of the few looks other people could interpret. Something that basically said, _Isn't that like the proverbial Pot calling the Kettle-_

"And you know it's true," Jack grinned, bare foot travelling up just enough to touch that particular piece of anatomy they both loved.

Another groan sounded out, but this one was from both men. They were no longer on the subject of bad dreams and guilt apparently; rather, they were wondering if it was too early to engage of their mutual and most cherished activity rarely taken up in the morning.


	22. Love is Blind, Friendship Closes Its Eye

_Disclaimer: I do not own Batman Beyond and do not make any money writing this. None at all._

This chapter is dedicated to Rose Midnight Moonlight Black, for adding me as a beta and for constantly cheering this on. I'm grateful, and as a result, this chapter took an awfully long time, since I wanted it perfect. And for taking me into confidence, Damian Wayne has been added to this.

Small thing, Hal Grayson is an actual character from DC in that comic Superman/Batman Day and Night, but he was technically not a real person. This is my making him into one. Everyone mentioned is a character from DC and has actually existed at some point in one of those realities. This is my making sure that they receive some attention. The only one that has never existed is my Flash remodel, and that only happened by accident and basing him off of previous Flash models.

Okay, explanation over. Enjoy the fic.

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Love is Blind, But Friendship Closes Its Eyes-;-

White faced, rather like she had looked months ago, but without those ungodly red circles and fake freckles, and with the add on of the white leather jacket lined with lead along the inside like the Milky Way where nobody could see it (that was the point of it after all) and the collar split the color of loving red and moonlight black that her Nanna had made so long ago, Deidre sat in a very empty hallway in the Watchtower.

Terry, Bruce, Wally and Barry had somehow, she still wasn't quite sure exactly how, convinced her to go up with them to the Watchtower so the decision could be reached on whether the League would accept her as a part-time member.

As it were, a few days ago Terry had stolen the keys to her car and found the hidden goodies in the trunk that she was too unsure and afraid to try on. As included, and brought to her by Barry after she had finished one of her baking inducing panic attacks and he was in a particularly mischievous mood, were her short-shorts dyed black, her tank top still the same color of rouge red as her knee-high boots also included, her sailor cap with the orange yarn wig sewed in, the white leather jacket (she was wearing at the moment) and a long rod of metal that was rather similar to a fighting staff, but with little buttons and turns meant to unlock triggers that could make the staff a mallet or anything useful (perhaps it would have been more appropriate to call it a giant trick pocket knife).

She was well aware that the Watchtower was supposed to be chittering and groaning with activity, but when all of the boys and she had been collected from Wayne Manor and materialized to the fortress-like tin can, nobody was near the teleport deck except for J'onn J'onzz. He had looked right at her with his beetle eyed, blank look and she knew exactly what was happening. The Big Seven obviously needed to discuss this situation first.

The Martian had led them to the top floor, Bruce and Wally just behind and Deidre being herded gently forward by Barry and Terry.

On the way up they passed a few heroes in the halls. Static and Gear, the darker man pausing in his walk to give the little group a tilt of the head, perhaps in good humor. Aquagirl and the small Green Lantern Deidre had seen once and a while on the TV when she stayed in hotels, each of them receiving a 'hello' from Barry, a small nod from Terry, but both forms of greeting were ignored for coolly observing the ex-Joker between them. And of course, Kon, which nearly had Deidre bolting away like a rabbit, were it not for the Tomorrow Knight holding onto her arm.

They had arrived at the top floor, the hall leading to a wide door that was so obviously a conference room, and the rest of the Seven standing before it, along with Warhawk. All had serious looks upon their visage and silently moved into the room, all three of the Stewart family giving Deidre a look that clearly stated where they thought she should be: perhaps dead in a ditch somewhere or drowned in a river. Sadly, they had to settle for her being placed on the one plastic chair in the hallway by Bruce directing her that way, before heading in with the rest.

Which left her alone in the hall.

Sighing for what felt like the millionth time, Deidre fiddled with the heavy staff in her hand, clicking one button at a time, seeing what it did, like expand and become heavy or—so far—somehow clip and fold and bend and form a large umbrella, until she clicked the same button and reformed back into a staff. She wasn't just doing nothing, though. She could occasionally hear an echoing down the hall, whispers all saying the same thing—what is she doing here?

Inside the shut room, she can also hear shouting, heavy voices, accusations.

She blinks her eyes and thinks, absent and unbidden within her own mind, '_Well, it can't really get any worse than this._'

A tall, dark shadow passes over her, not five seconds after the thought, and she bites the inside of her mouth, drawing her own blood. She's always been wrong about her luck.

Blue silver eyes glance sideways, her neck doing the same and met…god, no. No, no, _please_.

"So, it is true," a smooth, dark voice says assuredly, familiar but out of place and frightening blue eyes staring into her fearful ones, "Father is taking in even more strays."

The middle-aged man standing before her had been in a few of the portraits she had dragged down from Bruce's attic in a fit of curiosity from boredom. He was always included in the family portraits, with all of the clan, girls, boys and the old man. He was the youngest son, son of Talia Al Ghul-whom Nanna had explained was quite dangerous and one of the few people she really disliked—and grandson (though disowned, if Deidre remembered correctly) to Ra's Al Ghul, the Demon's Head.

Damian Wayne, in all of his entire pristine black business suit, over six feet tall, superiority embellished glory.

Deidre looked away from him and down the other end of the hall. Maybe, just possibly, if she wasn't afraid of running into Kon or someone else that had a vendetta against her entire family, she could make it to that air vent she had noticed in the ceiling they had passed…

* * *

"…I can't understand how you could even think this could work!"

Rubbing the bridge of his nose, Bruce fought back a growl. He knew John would be a little adamant that Deidre should not be added to the League, but he had hoped that it wouldn't be this bad. Clearly, he was wrong.

"John, please," Clark spoke up from his place at the head of the table, the Flash and Bat clans on his left, the Stewarts and Diana on his right, and J'onn at the other end (the table being more oval, than round), "Let's try and keep this civil."

John retained his raised hackles, but settled back down into his seat from his little outburst, arms crossing over his chest, "Fine. But, I still don't like this."

"You've never even spoken to her, GL," Wally defended politely, voice level, but eyes losing their usual shine after John's last insinuation of the girl out in the hall.

"I don't have to," John muttered, "I met her, and her sister and that whole lot of psychotic teenagers. You were there too, Bruce. Or did you forget?"

Bruce's jaw set, ever ready for this fight since Deidre came to the manor, "We also saw Rex there and he was almost your age. It was only a possible future John. We stopped it. She's not who you think she is."

"I agree with John, Bruce," Diana finally spoke up from her chair, hands entwined regally, "She could be rather dangerous if she knows as much about us as, well, you do. And I doubt she has your sense of morality to keep her from acting on any urges she may or may not have inherited from Joker."

Terry straightened in his seat, giving Diana a little glare, "She would never act like him. You're thinking of her sister."

* * *

"I admit," Damian spoke finally once again, after setting down the chairs (five, so Deidre knew there would be more people to come and harass her worthless ass, _God_…) he had brought along from around the bend and sat in the one that looked the least scuffed up, right next to her, "When Irey told me her son was becoming familiar with an ex-Joker, I just chalked it up to her being sarcastic and her usual flightiness. Then of course, I called Drake and low and behold, I find it to be true. Father did indeed bring the spawn of the grinning monster into Wayne manor."

Deidre was trying her best not to click her heels against the chair, bite her tongue until it bled out and killed her, grind her teeth, look Damian in the eye or scream until someone from inside the room came and saved her from what she felt was simply the preamble to her murder. She was so far succeeding, only staring straight ahead at the door and cursing inside her head in the most abhorrent language she could remember from her days working against the law.

Damian leaned back in his chair, the cheap metal grinding against itself and making a little squeaky noise, "Though, I would have thought that you would not have to wear makeup or look quite so pitifully small. What are you, barely above five feet?"

"Damian?"

Both the son of Wayne and the now slightly twitching clown girl turned at the echoed name.

What was down the hall were some people that were young enough to still function in the League and also old enough to be familiar to Deidre. Which, really, was something she didn't need right now.

Three people. Two women and one man. The man was as tall, if not just a little taller than Damian and stood between the two women that were just a little shorter than him, one a redhead, like himself, and one with ebony hair. Irey West—Barry's mom for heaven's sake—also known as the current Impulse, Lian Harper, aka, Red Arrow, and Colin something-or-other, whom Nanna Harley had described as sweet and thoughtful and with the ability to expand and turn into someone that looked rather like Bane, but was referred to by the superhero society as Abuse.

Deidre really needed a kitchen. Where she could bake something to burn off the sudden rush of adrenaline through her blood and pretend she wasn't in this nightmarish situation with (God why must you punish her so) the grandson of the devil in human form and his…well, probably some of the few people on earth who gave a damn about him other than his actual adoptive and biological family. Either that or she needed to find a paper bag to hyperventilate into so she could actually start breathing.

"~tt~" Damian groaned, giving the three coming their way a sort of annoyed look, "You're late. I expected you here at least five minutes ago. Decided to watch the carnage?"

"Don't be an ass, Damian," Irey started, walking finely towards the two, and finally noticing Deidre trying not to look any of them in the eye, "So, this is the little lady my son's been hitting on."

Okay, that got Deidre's attention. Little lady?

Tilting her head just enough to gain contact with lovely green eyes, Deidre tried not to flinch back even more into her chair as Irey sat down in the chair on her other side, her long ginger hair in their pigtails curving enticingly around her shoulders and making her look even more beautiful in just a standard pair of jeans and a pink Cardigan. Very motherly as she leaned near Deidre, a carefree smile just like her son and father.

"Hello, I'm Barry's mother. And you must be…uh, Deidre, right?"

The sweet demeanor and way the question was asked, startled Deidre, and she found herself answering, despite the look still being directed at her by Damian and that ever present burning sensation in her that said to stay quiet, keep her mouth shut and she'll survive longer in the Watchtower"…Y-Yes miss."

Damian smiled and crossed one leg over the other so he could lean on the arm balancing upon it, blue eyes flashing, "Demon's Spawn speaks."

"Dami, knock it off," Lian basically ordered, taking a seat just beside Irey and shooting Damian a sharp look.

"Well, she didn't say a word before you got here," the son of the Batman defended, "I was starting to think she was mute."

"Were you being all Alpha Dog, Dami?" Colin asked, sitting beside Damian and putting a hand on his thigh, a silent gesture that he'd learned a long time ago could sedate the dark prince and make him somewhat tolerable among other beings; human or alien.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Colin."

"Forgive Damian," Lian offered the clown girl, a toothy white smile lighting along her face, "He's not accustomed to talking civilly to girls. One does wonder why, though, after all, he's been dating Colin on the upper end of ten years."

"Lian!"

"Oh, right, sorry Colin."

Deidre sighed internally. There was one seat left just at the end of this little lineup and she felt another bout of dread forming in the pit of her stomach like acid reflux. She hoped that the meeting within that door before her would end soon. She couldn't take another surprise without possibly and very probably passing out on the floor.

* * *

J'onn J'onzz stared at the door as Terry and Barry defended their new friend from a bout of slander from the lips of Rex Stewart. Nobody else noticed the way he had been looking at it, as Superman was trying to reign in the situation and Bruce and John were speaking civilly but with more talk of the shared trip to a reality nobody else could remember, Wally was explaining the situation to Diana and Shayera and the like.

J'onn had taken note that Damian had arrived, along with other members of the League who had family claim to this situation. The girl was…using very interesting language in her head that, though nobody else could hear in their heads, came out in perfect pitch to the Martian. He knew if he told them what she was thinking, they might not be so quick to rush to the assumption that she was no good.

With this in mind, he turned away from the door and back to the table. He surveyed the scene once more and, without preamble, picked up the empty water glass in front of him (a duplicate of the rest of the water glasses on the table for the others) and tossed it against the nearest wall.

The room was drowned in silence. All eyes looked towards him and he cleared his throat.

"As far back as I can remember, when things like this, in the League, need a decision, a vote has been taken. Might I suggest we do that?"

Superman sighed, one of relief and gratitude and sent a silent mental message J'onn's way in saying so, "That's an excellent idea, J'onn. But first, could Terry, Rex and Barry please leave the room?"

Terry straightened in his seat to object, but was stopped by Bruce, his arm jutted out before the young man, a confirming look to follow, "Yes. We'll call you all in when we've decided."

Giving simultaneous groans, Batman II and Flash III got up from their seats, each giving Warhawk a dark look as they opened the door and dispersed into the hall. The last sounds brought forth before the door sealed shut again was, "…Oh, mom, hi! What are you guys doing here—Mr. Damian?"

Clark looked away from the retreating figures and over to Bruce. The former Dark Knight's eyes were as small as pinpricks, but he remained in his sitting position. If any of their children killed Deidre, Terry would have started yelling and Barry would have cried.

"Alright," Clark started again, the voice of reason, "All those against her joining the League?"

Automatically, John, Shayera and surprisingly, Diana's arms were raised, stiff and to the point, as soldiers and warriors were.

"All for?"

Bruce, Wally and Clark himself raised their arms, gentle, but quickly, like kings of the state.

All eyes, for and against alike, looked in the way of J'onn, the Martian simply sitting with his arms crossed atop the table.

"J'onn?" Clark questioned.

"Before I make my decision," J'onn started, standing from his own seat to float over to the door, "I'd like to speak with her first. If you don't mind?"

They all looked at each other, some blinking, some seeming to say 'why didn't we think of that before?' in their heads. But, as it were, they all wanted this matter settled, so they all got up from their seats and walked to the door as the Martain opened it.

"Deidre," Bruce spoke as he crossed into the hall and stopped just before the girl (taking note that she was so nervous that she was gripping her staff and trying hard not to breath, Damian sitting right next to her with the smile that scared the crap out of criminals in the old days) "J'onn would like to speak to you before our decision is reached. Just you and him."

"Actually," J'onn spoke as Deidre got up—very quickly and gratefully from her chair—and bolted passed the green man into the room, "A mutual party is coming up as well, but he's not hostile and his opinion counts quite a bit in this verdict."

"A-Alright," she stuttered, J'onn gently leading her into the whole of the room as he shut the door.

* * *

The teleporter gave its usual heavy groan of electricity and cogs in the machine giving themselves the runaround as two figures configured upon the deck, their molecules reshaping and solidifying.

A conversation that had been cut off to bring up the two men resumed without really being ended, the younger of the two, with his long brownish black hair in its loosed form and lean body in its tight black and blue suit, starting off again.

"…And, it's not like dad didn't want to come, it's just…well, you know how things have been on the home front. If I'm not there, he has to be."

"Hal, stop for a second and inhale, before you pass out on the floor."

The brunette sighed, shoulders drooping a few inches as uncle Tim led the way to the elevator, the jacket he had brought along hanging from his arm as it was always unpleasant up on the Watchtower. A small smirk lit his face at how skittish his nephew on this subject, but he tried not to let his amusement show.

"So, uh," Hal Grayson, the new Nightwing, started again, "What's aunt Stephanie's opinion on this matter?"

"…"

"You did tell her you were coming up here, right?"

Tim shook his head, nonchalant, "Just the boys."

"They're covering for you?"

"No…they're just keeping Steph occupied until we all come to a decision on what to do."

"Oh _great_."


	23. Future Tense

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned, other than Barry II, and make absolutely no money from this.

I can't believe I wrote this. It's so frickin' fluffy that clouds would be ashamed and cotton candy would be sickened.

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Future Tense-:-

The sky outside was cloudy and rain lightly dribbled down the panes of Melanie's window, but, laying in a wonderfully entangled heap upon her very comfortable bed, with her cute baby blue blankets covering them up to keep them warm as well as decent, Ghoul smiled at the brave lines of sun piercing through the clouds. His fingers lightly traced the outlines of Mel's shoulder and neck bones as she woke up and took a moment to inhale the scent of the shampoo residue in her hair. She smelled of melon and something that was suspiciously similar to the Blend 22 incense that Delia had been burning in the rat dens they'd been inhabiting for over a year. Only, with Melanie, it was much more suitable and didn't give him the urge to start smoking menthol cigarettes to get rid of the scent.

"Where do you want to be in ten years?"

Blinking, Ghoul finally looked into Melanie's very open blue eyes and smiled, much more languid and happy than usual.

"Huh," he spoke, gentle, "I used to play this game a few months ago."

"Come on," she sort of groaned, cheerfully, turning from her position on her back, on his front, onto her front so she could look into his dark eyes without straining her neck, that dazzling smile of hers lending to the ambiance of the room, "I want to know."

Ghoul grinned, and began rubbing up and down her shoulder blades, "Okay, but it's gonna sound stupid."

"Nothing you say sounds stupid. You're the smartest guy I know. Your accent is a little if-y, but—"

"Hah-ha," he uttered, sarcastic and lightly tickling her sides, causing her to jump around a little, while still maintaining her place on his body, her airy laugh causing him to chuckle.

When she settled back down, he patted her head and finally said, "Close your eyes."

She gave him a head tilt.

"Just do it," he ordered, still grinning, "I'm an expert at this game."

Melanie rolled her eyes, beautiful oceanic orbs that they were, and then closed them. And still she kept her smile, the ruby lipstick she used to wear long gone and leaving behind these two perfect lines of light pink like a sea star Ghoul had found once when he was five, made a wish on (thinking it was a fallen star) and buried under an apple tree.

"Okay. Picture a big white house, two stories high and with this round front door painted green."

"Mm-hmm…"

"On the front deck, there's you, in this beautiful white sundress that, as it turns out, kind of shows the outline of your nipples and your collar bone because you had an incident with the spray wand attached to the sink in the kitchen earlier that morning—"

She opened her eyes for a second and batted him on the chest, "Perv!"

His deep, accented voice bellowed laughter, but his hands found her eyes and covered them again, "Come on, it's all in good fun! Now, pay attention."

She snorted, muttering about men in that kind of general sort of way, but did as he told her, crossing her petite little arms under her breasts as he continued.

"Anyway, you're in that dress and it's mid-spring, and you're hanging up that set of coral shaped wind chimes you saw last week at the mall. They're tinkling beautifully and I'm crouched down right next to you, painting little blue stars around that round green door."

"How many stars?"

"One big one for me, one big one for you with little speckles and…" he thought about how to put this, these thoughts and hopes, "One little one just next to yours."

"What's the little one for?"

"…For a baby, if you want one."

An airy laugh whispered out of Melanie's lips, "I was hoping you'd say that."

"And you're smiling, and inside the house, near the door that we left open to let in the cool breeze, the big Grandfather Clock rings noon and we head inside to start making drinks and sandwiches for Woof and Jack, because they're coming over to help make up the baby room."

Opening her eyes again, Melanie just sort of looked directly at Ghoul and just… there was a peacefulness about her in that moment that said how much she could agree with what he wanted. Because, in her heart, she wanted it, too.

Leaning in, her tiny hands held the sides of his face and she brought her lips to his, a nice deep kiss that both got into after a minute. His arms brought her in closer, her breasts gracing his chest in the process and each could feel a building heat just under the surface of the physical.

When they pulled apart to breathe, their foreheads touched and they kept smiling.

Neither of them had been in a relationship quite like this before. Sure, they'd both dated, but they never had anyone quite as close to perfect as they were to each other in that moment of admittance of wanting the same thing.

"Where do we live?"

Bringing his head back down onto the pillows, his eyes roved over her swollen lips and the iris of her eyes and his calloused fingers traced the shell of her left ear, "Wherever you want."

"…Anywhere but Gotham."

"Deal."


	24. No One Mourns

Disclaimer: I make no money writing this and own no mentioned and memorable characters from any series mentioned. Blah.

This was written as a lark. I feel it is absolutely needed for there to be a point of view on Bruce from one of the letters mentioned after Terry was brought back from hanging upside down by the Rogues. Forgive the very apparent angst and obvious, eh, deprecation.

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No One Mourns…-:-

Waiting, ever attentive and silent within himself as Bruce listened to Barbara and Terry shut the front door of Wayne Manor, he held his breath.

Most people would be astounded that he could hear the last click from the front door and the lock turning into itself as Terry locked it on his way out, but Bruce scoffed at the thought. His hearing had diminished a tad in the last couple years, and it irritated him that he could quite make out their sounds as they walked down the drive way.

However, he didn't dwell on it.

Looking down into his hands, he felt…frightened. One of the letters in that crate Terry had arrived with was addressed to Bruce and he held it in his palms. The writing was familiar and it terrified him—Bruce Wayne, Batman, The Dark Knight—to imagine what was awaiting him when he opened the envelope's seal. He knew of course, there was nothing toxic or deadly, but it was like reading this letter from Harley was an admittance of her actually, physically being gone.

Still, he had to read her last words to him.

Swallowing what little spit there was in the back of his throat; Bruce brought a dull fingernail to a crinkled end of the envelope and slowly tore it open. The sound was deafening in the cave, to him at the very least, and as the ripped paper fell into his lap, he brought to the light five pieces of ivory—like the parchment in ancient India—paper. Loose letters of print adorned the white, and he could almost hear her voice as he read them, only taking a small comfort in the fact that, oh how like the old days, she had lightly sprayed the pages with her favorite perfume of Sunshine and Opium that she had and—if he was correct—Deidre now wore.

'_Dearest B-Man,  
By the time you read this letter, I will most certainly be dead. How do I know this? Well, let's just say that a long time ago there was this lovely witch that played with dangerous men that had purple hair and offered a kindness onto me. I also know very well who has most likely done me in, but will not state so here. Sometimes, things happen that you have no control over, but I certainly have control over this and shall not write any more of it here._

_Now, the first thing that I would like to say, really and truthfully, is just how sorry for everything I am. I know that the things I did were horrible and I'll not expect you to forgive me. Nor will I ever ask for your forgiveness. I am sorry, though, for everything that I ever did, and to anyone I ever wronged. You and your partners, especially._

_As it is, this letter will answer some questions I just know are rattling around in your head like a well oiled machine._

_I shall hope that this will be of some minor comfort: I did not love Joker. I did like him, for a time, in the very beginning, but I did not love him. I hated him for what he did.'_

Blinding blue eyes blinked at the words that were ending and cut down to the bottom of the first paper. When he flipped to the next page, the words were more open and more…he could understand, now.

'_Now, what do I say about my life, now that I no longer see anyone I know, or knew in this life? I can say that, I know you think that my friends were evil and perhaps I was, too, but we had our reasons. Theirs was the result of going through years of people never listening to them, lending them a shoulder to cry on and, obviously, abuse. I just tried my best to listen to them, to endure and help them any way I could. Obviously, not as well as yourself, but, oh well. I just…I should never have tried to do so with Jack—Joker. Forgive me. The way I am now, I let melancholy take over and wonder too long over things not worth remembering._

_But, it wasn't all bad. You kept me from dying and did your best to understand, even though we wouldn't let you see. I'm grateful that you took pity on Gotham, and us poor Rogues. One can only wonder how we would have turned out if you weren't there. Perhaps dead long before we got started._

_Hm… Now, about my little family. As you most likely know, I've had three children. True, the twins aren't technically my own, but my daughter certainly didn't stick around to raise them, and as per all the problems in my genetics from all those anti-venoms, immunity shots and other chemical crap I let my friends put in me and…well, you already know Joker was pretty screwed up physically as well as mentally. They're probably my clones. Only, much more complicated than actual clones._

_Anyway—'_

Bruce flipped to the next page, a tiny smile working its way up as his fingers traced the edges of the paper. The Sunshine and Opium became even more apparent as he read, the perfume obviously much fresher near the back. This might have taken Harley years to write.

'_I want you to remember this, because I mean it: I love __**all **__of my children. Maybe not as equally as I should have, but I did my best and, as usual, it wasn't good enough. It never is, after all._'

_My daughter, whom you'll never meet, was the spitting image of Joker if he was a woman, blonde, normal in coloring and a foot shorter. She was just as much of a nightmare, too, unfortunately. Didn't listen to a word I said, abusive to everyone, I didn't even know she was pregnant until the third month when I noticed her eating food she claimed she hated. She didn't even know who the father was and after looking, I found him dead under John Doe. She tried to deliver in the old Arkham ruins, too. Damn near would have if I hadn't found her…after that is something I will not go into.'_

Flipping again, Bruce nearly jumped out of his skin when a little photo spun out into his lap. He was confronted by a picture of a Harley sixteen or so years earlier, with two baby girls wrapped in her arms in a maternity ward. The one in her right arm was wrapped in white, tiny hand clinging to Harley's loose ponytail and looked a little too small to be really healthy. The one in her left arm was wrapped in red and looked like she was struggling to move around, her arms somehow loosed and grabbing at Harley's ear and shirt, visage generally much healthier. Harley herself was smiling brilliantly at the camera, looking happier than Bruce had ever seen her.

He picked up the picture and set it delicately between some of the keys of the computer. He would figure out what to do with it later.

'_The twins. They are a story of epic proportions and it's only the beginning stage of their lives. In the beginning, they were so similar, but it was still easy to tell them apart for rather evident reasons. Delia was and is rambunctious, wild and free like those tropical flowers Red—sorry, Pamela—tried to crossbreed so long ago. She's just as hard to contain, too. Deidre, like me, often followed and was such a wallflower until just a few years ago._

_That's all that I can say; by the time you read this, things will have changed, beyond my control. Just… Delia will never listen to anyone. She can't, I've tried to make her and she won't listen, not even to her sister. She's dangerous. I love her, but she is and I'm a little afraid for you, B-Man. And I'm afraid for your…understudy. She's more like Joker than her mother, but in the worst possible way. Please be careful, okay?'_

Coming to the last piece, Bruce braced himself up against the chair and didn't even notice the way Ace looked at him from beside his feet, a tilt to the head.

'_And my youngest one, my darling Deidre… I don't expect you to, but please, give her a chance. If someone would give her even a little chance, I know she could do well in the world; do some good. You don't have to, not for me, not after everything, but just think about it._'

_Now, as it is, I should probably get on with my good-bye. But, I'll just say this one more time, so you know I meant it._

_You are the best thing that ever happened in my life. You were nice to me, kinda. You showed it better when you were in civilian clothes. Remember that first time I was released from Arkham? I'll never forget you trying to talk me out of getting spooked. Or, after, when you gave me back that dress I actually paid for. Or the millions of other times you saved me from whatever. God, I miss you._

_So… good-bye, and good luck and believe me when I say thank you.'_

As the last words etched into the back of his eyes and along the grooves of his brain, Bruce let out a little breath of air, thumb sliding up and down the paper. The little ruffles in the parchment wound him up like a toy soldier and he found himself standing up and carefully folding the paper and putting them back into the envelope. They slid in with ease, going home, and he gently, quietly stepped over to the display cases.

The harlequin costume that had been standing in the center of the room for one quarter of a century seemed to stare back at him with its little eye mask, the tears and rips sustained from the attack suffered by Inque even more obvious than ever as he stood before it. But, it no longer frightened him on the inside. To the contrary; opening up the little door of glass, he could imagine it smiling as he set at its feet the envelope, right beside the tiny bag of ashes left to him.

Closing the case, Bruce allowed himself a moment of pause.

If he really thought about it, he would probably end up missing her more than ever now, despite her no longer being within this mortal coil. But, the thoughts would be lighter. All he had to do, after all, was revisit the letter and remember what she said. He could be comforted by the fact that she wasn't all bad.

Spinning on his heel, he made to go upstairs and to sleep, Ace bounding beside him, sensing that Bruce was a little less grim than he had been not an hour ago. His long tail wagged as proof.


	25. Just Quinn

Disclaimer: I don't own anything of the DC animated worlds or otherwise. I make no money from writing this.

This is a continuation of chapter twenty-two, as I feel that questions need full explanation and I really think the only way to introduce more characters is through that. For those who don't know, Alexa and Thrax were featured in the Wonder Woman animated movie; one had an actual role and one was only featured for a grand total of two minutes at most. Enjoy.

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Not Princess, Not Queen, Just Quinn-:-

"So… who're you?"

Bruce felt, rather than allowed, his eyes to roll and close as Terry started off his first conversation with the billionaire's youngest son. The young man had no idea of this of course, as Bruce had never really mentioned any of his family (dead or otherwise) unless he absolutely had to. Seeing as Damian was never, ever brought up in polite conversation anywhere near Terry, that had yet to happen, and there was a rather obvious reason that everyone else in the Watchtower simply ignored like the elephant in the room.

Bruce hadn't spoken to Damian in forever, not since he'd left to pursue a normal relationship with Colin somewhere that it always rained. Nobody ever thought that they'd see each other again in these settings.

In the back of his mind, Bruce had an inkling that Tim had something to do with this.

Damian, for his part, was still stationed in his seat beside his only real friends in the world and was looking over Terry rather like the ringmaster of a show dog competition looks over a new contestant that had never made it to the center ring before. God help Terry…

"I'm Damian Wayne," the snobbish man finally answered, grinning as Terry's face contorted comically, "And you're my father's new errand boy, correct?"

"I…"

"Oh, don't get me wrong," he continued, probably noticing the dark look from his father, but ignoring it as he needed to get this out of the way before a certain guest made his appearance, "I'm glad someone decided to take over Gotham before it devoured itself. Lord knows father wasn't going to ask anyone with more experience for help and it's good to see that being around someone so young has brightened father's complexion."

At this point, the ginger sitting beside Damian pinched the brunette's ear, pulling him as far as he could while maintaining a pseudo-controlled disposition, light smile and warm eyes included. Even as Damian cussed something in what could have been Arabic.

"Forgive Damian," the ginger said pleasantly, "Tim told him all of this over the phone and he's been a little…out of sorts for the last few weeks."

Terry nodded, though only gently, taking in the words offered up to him. He knew Bruce had kids, but he had assumed all of them had been…rescued from certain death on the streets, from circus tents, from becoming OCD receiving tax accountants, etc. He had never imagined that the old man had actually assisted in the conception of a new life. That seemed so wrong, somehow. And here was the proof.

* * *

Sparkling blue eyes stared from the middle aged man to the current Nightwing as Tim looked over the woman the blue eyes belonged to. The red hair framing the young woman's face did nothing to hide her blush, though, as Mr. Drake—as she was told it was polite to address him—finally spoke to her, handing her the little pamphlet that served as the Watchtower cafeteria's menu.

"Alexa, it's so nice to see you again. Finally got Diana to bring you up with her?"

Alexa, the redheaded Amazon, now hesitant protégé of Wonder Woman herself, known primarily for her inability to really fight _at all_ and her colossal knowledge of everything written by every author ever published that bothered to put pen to paper, smiled at the former Robin, taking the slip of paper from him always holding his order of a vanilla bean coffee double-shot she would get wrong without being written in his neat penmanship, "No. I didn't convince her of anything. Thrax—her cousin, the white haired son of Ares Diana took in a while back if you remember—kept on bothering her until last week when Superman called her to tell her there would be a meeting about someone from Gotham joining the League. She offered me the chance to work in the Watchtower part-time with the experimental science Micron has been working on as long as I take lessons from Thrax when he's up from missions. But, enough about me, what are you doing up here, Mr. Drake? I thought you were retired."

Tim smiled at the rambling girl, hands balancing him before the counter of the coffee bar as Alexa did a work up on his drink while simultaneously trying not to drop the ingredients needed, Hal remaining silent and trying not to get caught staring at her still very Greco wardrobe and the curves they showed off. Most obviously the sway of those two C cups on her chest.

"I'm actually here to…well, sort of interview the applicant for the League. J'onn insisted, since her and me…kind of share history. If it can be called that."

"More like black-out history…" Hal muttered, averting his eyes as Alexa came up from below the counter with a bottle of vanilla flavoring. He absently wove his fingers through his auburn hair and blinked before lightly pushing off the floor to levitate, so like his mother when she's nervous. Tim allowed him that one comment, for now.

"Another girl's joining the team," Alexa asked, adding the vanilla plentifully, along with the ice chips she knew Tim liked from the few times she'd met him over the years.

"Perhaps," Tim smiled, "If the interview goes well."

* * *

"…So, how are Bruce and Batman treating you?"

J'onn wanted to start off this little interview as painlessly as possible, he really did. He sat Deidre down on the far end of the table where Terry had sat, himself taking his previous seat so she would feel a little less threatened, but it didn't seem to be enough. He could practically choke on the fear and panic radiating off of her like a tsunami, and it didn't help that he could hear something along the lines of '_don't panic and they won't kill you—Terry's right outside the door…surrounded by more metas—stop it, stop it, stop it—don't panic—oh god, oh god…_' screaming like an echo chamber inside her head every five seconds.

Yes. Hopefully asking about the Batclan would minimize her panic. A nice safe question.

She flinches as a simple reflex, it seems, at his voice, but not too bad and thinks a moment, considering if this could lead down a dangerous road for her. When at last she answers, she is quiet, not at all how he imagined her voice might be when Bruce had once described her as a lively little acrobat that reminded him of another blonde that Tim had married, "They treat me pretty well. They're nice."

"And Barbara?"

"She's a real nice lady, just like Nanna said…"

He tries not to, but can't help but take note of the calm images in her head, all with a slight shading of yellow hair and blue eyes. J'onn nods at her answer, allowing himself a subtle smile.

"Mm-hmm. Now then, uh, what should I call you?"

Her eyebrows bridge together in confusion, head tilting to the side, "I'm sorry?"

"Well, if you are to work for the League, or at least Batman, I assume you have a code name of some kind. We can't very well go using your real name in the field, considering Barbara is going through channels to get your name changed so you can have a life outside working as a vigilante in respectable society."

She seemed to understand this, and nodded, chewing her lip nervously as she considered a moment.

"Well, Batman and Flash have been calling me Darling. A little rework of it, and I suppose you could call me Darling Quinn."

J'onn nodded encouragingly, "That works just fine. Now that that is settled, I would like to know why you think that you could work as a hero. Not that I myself am against it," he added as the inside of her mind started panicking again, "It's just that some of my colleagues would like to know, given your history and such."

Her hands squeezed the metal of her staff, still held between her knobby knees and making her look far too small to actually be able to carry and use it for whatever it was for, "I don't think I'm a hero. I-I just, well-I promised Nanna-… I just wanted to help B-Man. He helped me and Bruce helped Nanna, so it's only fair."

* * *

The elevator gave off a deceptively pleasant 'ding' and Tim and Hal stepped from its confines. Tim was still sipping happily from his cup and Hal had snagged a triple chocolate chip cookie from one of those trays in the cafeteria, biting it every five seconds, but still as yet unsuccessful in breaking a piece off, seeing as it was hard as a rock.

Giving up on the cookie for a time, Hal returned his ever questioning look towards his uncle, the salt'n'pepper haired man muttering '_Oh the shark bites, with his teeth, so pearly white…_' far too cheerfully, even as he just knew it wasn't just him hearing Uncle Damian and Grandpa Bruce's voices down the hall.

"Do you know what you're even going to say? How she might react? What J'onn's already asked?"

"Nope."

Hal groaned, the hovering he had started to begin again becoming ruined, along with his mood, and he practically stomped the rest of the way around the corner, dark brown hair wavering around with each step. He sometimes missed when his uncle was moody as hell and always to the point, rather than happy about something he still would not divulge to anyone other than the Martian (Tim's very own therapist) and Aunty Stephanie. This sudden onset of pleasantries was foreign and creepy to Nightwing II.

Coming around the bend, Tim and Hal were confronted by all but one of the Big Seven, their relatives and a few others. Uncle Damian appeared to be goading on the new Batman, the slimmer young man seeming to be holding back the urge to sucker-punch Tim's little brother and only held back by the fact that Bruce was standing right there, along with Barry's mom. And, presumably, the fact that Coli n was already reaching over to snatch at Damian's ear again.

Before anymore could go on before their eyes, the door to the room main room opened again, and J'onn's head popped out, body still in the room to obviously guard against everyone else's eyes. The Martian was looking directly at Tim, not seconds after they were within sight of everyone else.

"Tim, Nightwing, it's good to see that you made it," J'onn greeted, the others looking away from the door and over towards the two, Hal giving a little wave and Tim nodded at no one in particular.

When Terry looked over to the new arrivals, he looked… suddenly very nervous. Not at Hal, of course, but Nightwing couldn't help but notice the way the new Batman looked from Tim to the door—not at all at J'onn, obviously, more like beyond—and back again like a twitchy mouse, rather than a bat. Hal could guess why.

"Hello J'onn, everyone," Tim greeted back offhandedly, sipping closer to the bottom of his drink, "I'm not late for the interview, am I?"

"Not at all," J'onn said, "She's just been told you were coming up and promises not to pass out on the floor or suffer heart problems should she be panicked by your asking of the questions."

The others in the hall seemed to get with the program at this point. Hal took a seat—the last remaining folding chair—besides Colin and smiled by way of greeting at Batman, trying to seem pleasant, unlike the rest of the people in the hall. But, Terry was still looking nervously at Tim, ignoring the pointed look Bruce was giving him to calm down and not over-react or do anything embarrassing.

"Can I come in now?" Tim asked the Martian, hesitant despite himself.

J'onn smiled gently, opening the door wider for him, the aged Robin catching sight of blue eyes, white shading and that familiar red of yarn—until he was stopped by Terry firmly stopping him from entering with a strong hand around Drake's wrist.

"Don't hurt her, okay?"

It took a moment for Tim to realize that, yes, Terry had actually just said that, before he nodded, a very reassuring smile working along his face, "I promise."

Terry let go of Tim, but not without giving him a strong and gentle and very real squeeze that spoke volumes of just exactly he would do if Deidre came out with bruising and any other problems that were the result of fighting. This was just the right encouragement Tim needed to be sure that, yes, his decision to meet the girl was made in good faith.

Being led into the room, door shutting behind him, Tim made eye contact with Deidre for the first time on his own and not under possession by a microchip.

Very, very calmly, Tim took a seat right across from the girl and said, "Hello, Deidre. I'm Tim Drake. It's nice to finally meet you in person."


	26. Neurosis

I finally had more inspiration on Delia's insanity. Do you know how hard that is, writing within or around the thoughts of a truly crazy person? Huzzah!

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Neurosis-:-

Dark, stark and horribly green locks of hair swayed in the smog filled wind as Delia remained, remained, remained upon the one lone and angry gargoyle atop the tallest building she had claimed for herself. This was her new perch, her new den to stay that she had fought herself to keep from the Falcones, Thornes and the other lowlife slum-slime-crime lords of Gotham. This she chose.

It had occurred to her recently, though not all at once, that humans were animals and as such had their habitats and territory. And she smiled at the thought.

Atop her perch, legs hanging languidly on either side of the gargoyle, her hands resting atop its bald head, fingers tapping a rhythm only she knew upon its horns that perhaps also once served as ears, she thought on such a thing as animal life and what it could mean to her.

She was a little moody tonight. J-Man was ordered to leave her alone and he was assisting in the deal Chucko had set up with the Falcones that Woof had bailed on. She would not be bothered, if any of the idiots knew what was good for them.

Gotham was hers. In just a few short weeks she will have claimed all of its back alley dealings and black market tricks. Batman was still flittering around, but they hadn't clashed in over a month since she had escaped police custody again, and he was no trouble to her for now. Not until she went hunting for something to play with.

The sounds of a police trio of car alarms and whirring circled below her, heading to the south side district, their lights from the hoods dotting the street below her. She absently thought on those things a moment.

Gotham was hers. She was the animal at the top of the food chain and nobody fought her for the position. Not for the time, anyway. But, then, who would fight a Princess like her? She had already killed Candice Thorne's three lieutenants and had been present and the one to order the breaking of bones and puncture of organs for one of the East Side Skulls' captains, so they would be stupid to try. But, then, she was just crazy enough to revel and allow anyone who did attempt such a thing. One could always do with new blood.

Right now, she looked down upon what could be seen as Old Gotham, but that wasn't quite accurate. Old Gotham was three city blocks to her left, passed where she noticed the wind was swishing her hair against the visage of an electric billboard showing a young teen eating from a cereal bowl, the plastic/cardboard/plaster looking spoon that once swung from the electric bowl to the faded face of the teen every five to ten seconds splintered in half.

She likes this district best of all. Sure, it's supposed to be up for renovation soon, but the city keeps postponing it for more important projects like the newest Ground Wire or night club that she will eventually wreck or hold for ransom when she gets bored. Some part of her both hopes that it will be renovated or that it will stay the way it is now.

This is her place. She is the dominating animal of Old Gotham, princess of the Jokerz, the reigning champions of this animal kingdom.

"Oh, and how true it is!" Delia laughs to herself swinging up from the gargoyle to trail along the roof's edge it a loopy, dangerous dance along broken shingles and rotted wood.

Jokerz, she thinks, are predators that stick to back alleys and Old Gotham where nobody could catch them, or are too afraid to take them on. The Royal Flush Gang (that she has to deal with now on a regular basis, them raving and pestering her about their daughter) prey on the fat cats near the water front or Gotham Heights. The Splicers prefer the parks and recreational places where teens go, for easy pick-pocketing and offers to come to the dark side. Hackers go to the Ground Wire, old or new, to break into cyber security, like Ghoul, and rob from other cities like Metropolis or Star City, or worse, Los Angeles. The Mod did most everything in between, sometimes right under the cops' noses, and always getting caught by Batsy.

Delia hummed absently to herself, an old, old song that she could actually stand listening to when Harley was alive and Delia could tolerate her presence without Deidre, "_Hear your voice, ev'ry time I'm talkin'…_"

The cops, such strange animals! They thought that they were at the top of the chain, but they answered to much higher authority. The cops were mere foot soldiers, like lionesses, that took out Jokerz, common scum and what mobsters they could, like their own personal hyenas and oxen, but they answered to the mayor and FBI or NSA like they were lions, that simply watched and took what they wanted. Poor, sad little things. The only one that followed, perhaps, none of the hierarchy, was Batsy himself, who took down both hyenas and lions that went out of the chain and left them to be dealt with. Ha, such a silly flying rodent.

She tipped herself over the side of the building and, with a little spin head before heals, landed onto the next building. Behind her, a skylight, which was already cracked, rattled, and a piece of glass fell, at least three stories within its building and smashed to look like thin, white ice.

Her dark eyes scanned the skyline and, without realizing it, landed on the waterfront that, if one knew where to look, lead to the Summerset district.

She frowned at the thought.

Summerset. Ha! Nobody had claimed that territory, except for old, dead Harley. And, of course, the crumbling shadow of what was the first Arkham building.

Delia and Deidre and their mother had spent a good chunk of their lives living in Summerset, in that little house Harley had built in those long, tall, and more still, paid for woods. The old hag constantly told them, she built that house with her own two hands and paid for some maybe fifty-plus acres surrounding it. Her own little thinking place. Because nobody else liked it there.

Delia could remember that one tall tree, taller than most of the others around their house, all yellow and gross and sticky with what must have been the last vestiges of sap trying to secrete before the tree completely died. She would always climb up to the very top, sometimes dragging Deidre up, sometimes not, to stare over the one ridge that showed Arkham clear as a lighthouse along ocean cliffs, and at the glittering lights of Gotham itself. And always, she would plan where she would visit, this blue light on the hill or this red light closer to the Wayne-Powers building? Didn't matter, because she could see them, hanging from that tree, and she would see them all.

And she did, now that she thought about it. She visited every single one of those lights she could pick out.

Delia growled to herself. She spotted a little gargoyle hanging off the side of this building, only about the size of a barn owl, placed upon the building years ago. She didn't even think about it, and her boot, with the little purple laces in the very nicest bow she could tie, careened into the gargoyle's head, knocking the stone figure right off the building.

She listened a moment and, sure enough, finally heard the tell-tale noise of stone hitting metal and—ooohhh—a glass windshield. This was passed over for the sound of a horn blaring out into the night and a car—perhaps a nice limo if she was a good shot—hitting another car.

Maybe if she felt up to it later she'd go to Summerset and burn down Arkham or Harley's house…


	27. Nine Months of the Year

Disclaimer: I do not own any named DC characters, animated or otherwise, nor do I make any money from this. Blah.

Another little thing dedicated to Rose Midnight Moonlight Black, because of the last review sent my way that made me just want to write Damian as much as possible in this fic. This takes place just after chapter 14. Don't stone me, go in peace, leave a review for the poor?

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Nine Months of the Year-:-

Okay, he has the eggs, the flour, the butter, the olive oil, the flavoring, the chocolate chips…after doing this little chore for what feels like an eternity, Colin knows he should be better organized, but he somehow finds comfort from going over the things that don't seem to mean much to most people. He even found joy in it on the right day.

Humming to himself, he grabbed the two plastic bags from the passenger side and got out of his old, though rather nice looking blue pickup truck that Damian hated and cursed every single day, but had still assisted Colin in paying for when it became apparent that they couldn't ride their motorcycle (the same one Dami had given Colin when they were just ten and had just met) to work on a daily basis, considering they lived in Seattle and the roads got bad.

Keeping the bags in one hand, he kept his other arm covering his head as he trotted to the front door, key in hand. They did not have a gigantic, billion roomed mansion, not like Damian had planned years ago, but rather, it was a nice three bedroom two-story with a basement and, well, Damian liked to call it their own personal cave, even though it was more like an underground parking garage with all of Damian's gear for "night work" and the like. From the outside, it looked kind of like an over-sized log cabin…and it was home.

The key slid into the lock and with one precise turn and the little red light installed in the top of the door scanning from his head to his toes, the door creaked open.

From inside the house, near the kitchen where their vid-phone was located, Colin heard the very angry voice of the Wayne heir, shouting at another familiar voice that became more clear as Colin took off his leather coat, hung it up and stepped lightly into the spotless kitchen.

Damian was in his training shorts and nothing else and was yelling at the face of Tim Drake on their connection. Damian's older brother looked bored, whereas Dami looked like Mt. Saint Helen in flesh and bone and sweaty muscle…moving on.

"…He's lost his mind! And you have too, if you're okay with this! After what he did to you, you're okay with his spawn taking up resident at my—our—ancestral home?"

The older man sighed exasperatedly and waved at Colin as the ginger came into view, bags of groceries set quietly on the island counter for him to move into the fridge while this conversation/argument of some kind went on.

"Hello, Colin. How's your job downtown going?"

"Hi, Tim," Colin smiled, giving a little wave-back even as Damian turned his fear inducing rage towards him for a blink, teeth gnashing and fist clenching a helpless blue towel used to relieve the sweat coming off of him in waves after his usual exercises, "It goes well. What are you two fighting about this time?"

Before Tim could respond, Damian did it for him, the younger man pointing avidly at his brother's face, "Drake has just informed me that father brought the Joker's demon spawn into the manor! All sick and injured and fleeing from a punishment from her kinsmen that she most likely deserved!"

Ignoring the apparent sarcasm at the tail end of this asteroid sized exclamation, Colin blinked up at Tim and asked two things, perhaps connected, perhaps not, "Joker had children? You're okay with this?"

Tim nodded, much more apt to speak to Colin than Damian when the brunette was like this, "With the stuff I experienced a few months ago, I think it's fine. The one that Bruce and Terry are taking in is the nice one, anyway. She won't do anything bad, to Bruce or otherwise. And technically, she's his grandchild, and Joker had absolutely no hand is raising her."

"How do you know this?" Damian growled, annoyed, like a cat ignored, that this conversation was going out of bounds and therefore out of his control.

Tim rolled his eyes back Damian's way, "Joker's DNA hijacked my body, remember? With J'onn's therapy, I've been able to dig into some memories that microchip hid away. And anyway, if you watched the news and answered calls from Barbara, or better yet, checked out black market adds on the internet, you'd be aware that Bruce and Terry need all the help they can get."

"What, is this about that rubbish about there being a new Clown Prince—"

"Princess," Tim corrected in that know-it-all way that he used to when the brothers really hadn't got along.

"-Taking over Gotham? I'd assumed that father's new errand boy—"

"Terry. You can say his name, it's just two syllables. You're as smart as Bruce, you can remember the kid's name—"

"Shut up!" Damian hissed, using both hands to strangle the towel like it was Tim's neck, "They can handle it! She's just a sixteen year old girl, they don't need to bring her twin into the manor, damnit!"

"Holy shit," Colin gasped, the eggs he'd bought being neatly tucked into the fridge, "That crazy green haired banshee is actually related to the Joker? I thought that was just a publicity stunt the Jokerz were doing to gain more street recognition."

Tim shook his head, taking a little memory stick from his pocket and waving it before his screen, "Nope, she's Joker's Daughter—I ran a DNA analysis, she's practically a clone of both Joker and Harley Quinn, even though she's technically their grandchild—and Terry will need all the help he can get. If you hacked into GCPD like a good little vigilante," this barb was directed especially at Damian as Tim input the data from the memory stick through their link, two pictures coming up, one of Joker's Daughter in full attire standing atop a building surrounded by cops, laughing her head off, and one of what Colin recognized as the Bat cave, Barbara standing next to a cute little blonde haired teen looking scandalized at who Colin supposed must be Terry taking her picture while Barbara was bandaging some rather unsightly cuts along her ribs, "You'd know that she's already making Gotham a living hell. Poisoning, allergic reaction, mass murder; she's a shoe-in for taking up Joker's title. Tell me they don't need help now."

Damian bit his tongue for a moment, looking and trying to come up with something to fire back with to deny this going any further. However, as he looked at the two pictures, he was finding it harder to argue. The green hair, pale complexion, ruby red lips, psychotic mania that was so tangible he could feel the hair on the back of his neck stand up; all the signs were there, but he wanted to get the last word in here.

"Why are you asking me to meet here? It's clear you've all made up your minds. What does my opinion matter?"

"To see how much more we have to fight for this when I tell Dick and Jason."

At this little tid-bit of information, Damian lost all of his frustration and stared from his brother to Colin and back again with a sort of…understanding about this situation. This was suddenly interesting.

"You haven't told our brothers yet?"

Tim shrugged, "I wanted to gage your reaction. You responded like you would have when you were ten, so I'm thinking maybe I should call Dick next and save Jay for last."

Colin tried and failed spectacularly to suppress the snort that came up at the thought of Dami when they were ten and couldn't help but say back over his shoulder as he took out two beers, "I think you're wrong. If Dami would have learned this information when he was ten, he would have gone out and tried to take down the twins himself."

Damian gave his boyfriend a dirty look, but took the offered frothy beverage, ignoring the little peaks of pain that were needed when opening a beer bottle with a lid that wasn't smooth.

But then Colin continued, wiry, but lean arms wrapping around Damian's neck from across the island, warm hands settling along Damian's collar bone, "You're thinking about when he was twelve, much more mature and less homicidal and so much more…well, everything."

Tim found himself snorting at the image, not only before him on display, but at the memory of the mentioned age.

"Yeah, okay. I just thought I should let you know that she's also going to be interviewed by the Justice League as well so she won't actually have to stay in the manor. Bruce says she can work for Barbara, train with Terry at the manor and at League head-quarters, but should probably stay in either the Watchtower or Metro Tower so she isn't killed in her sleep or something…And you're not even listening to me anymore, so I'll talk to you later. Nice talking to you again Colin."

"Mm," Colin answered back half-heartedly, enjoying how sedate Damian got after he'd lost all of his puff.

Neither of them noticed when the vid-phone clicked off and they were left alone.

After a moment of just enjoying Colin's ever present cologne of Desert Sage and some kind of fruity musk, Damian shook the taller man off, grumbling obscenities under his breath and looking back over at the screen. Though Tim's connection had cut, the two pictures of the twins remained, slightly fuzzed around the image of the black and white blur of nothingness that showed on every screen when a program or talk was over; a blizzard trying to cover the edge of framed portraits.

"Now that I think about it," Damian voiced, taking no notice as Colin finished off his own drink and set to work on getting their gas oven pre-heated to three-hundred degrees and went to drag the still cold, but long since melted turkey he had let thaw out of the sink (the ginger ignoring the stab marks and very long knife Damian had left in it, probably from when his conversation with Tim had begun), "The one at the manor does look kind of pathetic…like Malibu Barbie."

"I think she looks kinda cute," Colin chirped, putting the giant-ass turkey they were to cook before Lian and Irey came over for the "double-date" Colin had planned behind Damian's back, forgetting entirely to tell Damian until they went to bed the night before. Green eyes glanced up at the picture of the smaller twin, taking in all of the bruises and scars and…other things decorating her back that were not covered by the gauze Barbara had applied before the newest Batman had set to sending her picture to Tim in confidence, "Though, I wouldn't compare her to Barbie. Barbie doesn't have bruises."

"Duely noted."

"Hey," Colin said, "Maybe we should meet her. And your…uh, well, if Mr. Wayne took him in legally, I suppose this Terry would be your…brother…right? We should go and visit."

Damian, tall, strong, always sure of himself Damian, looked at his boyfriend in a sort of scandalized way. Of course, Damian didn't do scandalized very well, so it was more like the look he would give a waiter if he found a long hair in his food.

"Why on Earth would we do a thing like that? I have no intention of meeting the runt of Joker's litter or the newest hack of a vigilante to work for my father."

"These hacks would not include you, right?"

The look of annoyance got Colin the amusement he had hoped for in that not really needed question, and the ginger laughed, hands opening up the turkey to put butter down the open hole that used to be its neck and lower throat, about ready to rub in the seasoning, "All I'm saying is, this should give you that opportunity you've been looking for to go back to Gotham, see your family and maybe, if your heart would grow one tiny fraction of an inch this year, to train someone. I know your work here and for the League as Rook is important—don't give me that look—but Bruce is not young anymore, and that kid has now become part of the Bat legacy. He needs better training than Bruce can just yell at him. And besides, you were probably going to stalk them up at the Watchtower, anyway."

"I seriously love this man who says such crazy things?" Damian asked the ceiling aka whatever entity that ruled the cosmos, though his mouth had a small volume of jest in it.

When Colin just hummed back over his shoulder, sliding the bird into the oven, the heat from within making his hands sweaty, Damian groaned. Not so much in that Colin was right—why was he always right about these sorts of things, i.e. family—but that he agreed with him. A little.

When Colin shut the over, Damian blocked his path to the fridge, where he was sure to be grabbing for one of the last beers. It was a little infuriating that the ginger was taller than him, but Damian ignored the fact and wrapped both arms around the tall oak of a torso, staring into green eyes.

"If I go up to the Watchtower and find that their abilities are lacking, and if you come, I'll think about it."

"Visiting your family or training the kids?"

"…If I say yes both, will it shut you up?"

"Until Irey and Lian get here."

"Fine."


	28. I Met This Girl

Disclaimer: I do not own any named DC characters, animated or otherwise, nor do I make any money from this. Blah.

Okay, for the record, I know that technically Owen is Boomer's son, but for the sake of this fic—and so I don't have to make yet another OC—I've tweaked him so that he's Boomer's **grandson**. Also, I don't know much about Trickster, other than he has a bit of a thing with Piper and has a little mini-me running around, but, again, for the purpose of this fic, I've buffed them up a little. Hah, finally found a way around what I need to make this work with the realization that, hey, this is fanfiction, I can do…basically…whatever I want! Take that Writer's Block, you insipid, hedonistic rat *_Insert Very bad characterization here_*.

Also, this chapter has the former Rogues because I'm bored and I actually like them. At least now I have a reason to write about them this time around. Takes place, eh,_ hours_after the ending of chapter nine.

Enjoy!

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**I Met This Girl-:-**

It has occurred to Jonathon that he looks utterly ridiculous walking down the sidewalks with a bouquet of flowers, water from their too small vase sloshing water occasionally with a quick turn of his body onto his knuckles and sleeves, but right now, he doesn't care. In fact, if he was really honest, the only reason he cares at all is that he's on his way to a bar/lounge with former associates whom he just knows are going to pester him as to where he got the flowers from.

Walking down the all too sunny sidewalks from where he had parked his car around the corner, Jonathon finds himself eyeing for what feels like the thousandth time The Captains bar and lounge.

It's a well enough sized sort of place, all blue and white on the outside with the name of the bar painted in a sort of pumpkin orange with floral green trimming the edges. It had awfully wide windows that allowed patrons to look in and out if they felt up to it, but what nobody who didn't know the owners knew was that the windows were bulletproof for any friends who were…well, in a bad place. They'd never been used, but it was always good to be prepared with everyone's reputation. The place actually used to be a pawn shop, but after Digger—formerly Captain Boomerang—and Len—formerly Captain Cold—bought it, they kept the floor plan, and simply decked it out with barstools, a very long counter, a few booths, pool table, and a small stage for comedy and/or karaoke night. All things considering, it could have been much worse of a place for the former Master of Fear to go for a decent night out on the weekends. At least he was always surrounded by familiar faces he had come to know after he had left Gotham for the last time and he wasn't so terribly depressed these days.

And, on the plus side, at least today he didn't have to regale the former Flash Rogues with horror stories of his job at the university.

Making his way through the door, by way of some strange and awkward display and arrangement of his elbows and his right foot pressing in, Jonathon was confronted by the sort of old fashioned Jazz from when he was rather young and echoes of laughter near the far side of the bar.

He pointedly ignored the stares he got from the very few young people soliciting the booths, together in their groups of twos and threes, and made his way toward the end of the barstools and counter where he preferred to speak with the Rogues and Boomer, rather than the end with a fair more amount of sunlight, happy young people and of course, Boomer's grandson Owen. He had to deal with the young man enough at school; he did not care to socialize with him on the weekends, even if he did work the bar.

"What'cha got there, Crow?"

James Jesse, formerly known as Trickster among friends (and still called 'Tricks' by his life partner Hartley—formerly Piper—and adopted son Axel) helpfully assisted Jonathon by maneuvering the lanky man to the counter and helped set down the bouquet.

The aged man, like Jonathon, was graying, but still had more color and muscle than Jonathon ever had and Jonathon couldn't help but feel envious of that, even after all these years. But, he rarely dwelled on it. Now for example, he bent back a little, hearing that familiar pop, pop, pop as his spine realigned from the horrible bent position he had been walking with and leaned back up, absently as ever looking at that horribly still bright blonde hair James had, and got into the conversation as though he hadn't stared at the man for a moment.

"I received a visitor today who left me this," he explained, taking a seat beside where James had been, starting their own conversation apart from Hartley, Len, and Sam—formerly Mirror Master—who were playing pool and talking about the old days (again) while Boomer was in the storage room, looking for the canister to refill the least expensive beer in the tap, "My students kept asking if someone I knew had died, so I thought I could leave it here."

"What's Boomer and Len gonna do with a bouquet?" James asked, curiously touching the stems, trying to pull out one whole stick of Sweet Briar, or a piece of the Mulberry, Jonathon couldn't quite tell.

"I don't know," the redhead shrugged, haphazardly jutting a thumb towards the lighter side of the bar, "Put it up in one of the booths where the love birds are perpetually sucking face."

"Ooh, never took you for the romantic kind, Crane!"

"Gah…" Jonathon practically groaned, leaning his head atop the counter as the blonde chuckled.

After a moment, however—blissfully to Jonathon—James silenced himself and, like a barn owl, tilted his head to the side and really looked at the flowers, suddenly very aware of something.

"Wait, who gave you these? Is Hatter in town?"

"No, he's still in that fine little mansion of his, going to book parties and drinking tea like he's stuck in a mad tea party."

"So where…?"

Blue eyes closed a moment, a little sadness and wonder were creeping up at the exact same time and raising his energy more than he really liked. He would have to word this carefully so he either didn't start crying or laughing like a schizophrenic at any point in this discussion.

"Do you remember Harleen?"

He received nothing but a blank look from James.

"Harleen Quinzel?"

Still nothing.

"Blonde hair, legs up to there," he made a motion with his hand in measurement, "Blue eyes, a bit of a Queens moll, always wore red, black and—oh, screw it, Harley Quinn?"

This was met by a look of 'ah-ha' across the usually cheery face of the blonde and he nodded enthusiastically, "Harley! Right, I remember her! Joker's hench wench, friend of Ivy's, nice gal."

"…Yes. Well, she had a baby, who had babies and one of them grew up and came to see me."

Eyes glassed for a moment as the more attractive man just stared at him. Perhaps, Jonathon considered, he was trying to decide if the redhead was lying through his teeth or if he should think he had gone insane again and was debating whether to refer him to his psychiatrist (as if Jonathon didn't already have one) or if he was dead serious.

Oh well. Jonathon supposed that the longer this took, the longer he could stay in the bar and not go home to review and mark and bemoan over those papers lying on his desk in his apartment given to him by his charges at the university.


	29. Rose Red and White

Okay, this time around, I have decided to take a journey back in time to when the twins were, well, let's say about six. I thought, since I've been focusing a lot on Deidre that it was time to give Delia the spotlight again, just the way she likes it. Only, since I'm having trouble with her teen psycho self, I thought I'd go back for a little fun, before she went off with her own head.

This chapter is dedicated to Black Midnight Moonlight Rose, who is putting something that I requested together for me (bless her heart) and CM Aeris for one of her reviews that kind of inspired this to happen (fresh inspiration is always something to be grateful for).

* * *

Rose Red and White-:-

Their house was completely out of sight, they couldn't even see that giant, ugly yellow tree that Delia loved to play on to annoy and get a reaction out of Nanna. Just perfect. A real adventure to have while their old guardian was distracted and baking those delicious chocolate chip cookies that weren't ever the same twice.

Their bare little feet run over sharp and biting twigs and dead leaves still slick with water from last night's heavy rainstorm. The sun isn't exactly shining, but peeks through and about the clouds hanging overhead and occasionally dot their arms and faces, making them look like fairies. Delia's ruffled red dress especially looks fantastic as they run, she thinks.

"Why do we have to run so fast?" Deidre asked, winded and out of breath already and finally stopping with Delia when the older twin finds that little creek she had seen a few days ago and wanted very much to explore. Deidre bends down, hands bracing her knees as she tries to breathe again, her own white dress that nearly touches the ground with the one bowed ribbon on her shoulder is a little muddy around the hem, while Delia looks perfect. Always perfect Delia.

"Duh," Delia laughs, jumping around some clovers and over to the bank of the creek, "So Nanna can't find us too soon. She'd ruin our adventure!"

"I…guess."

"Ah, come one, Dee Dee! We've been cooped up in the house for a week and summer's just started! Don't tell me you didn't want to come out here?" The rambunctious twin questioned, hands on her hips and so sure of herself that Deidre blushes for a reason that she can never understand. Why does she always get embarrassed so easily?

Deidre ducked her head a little, mumbling as she always did, "But, won't Nanna get mad?"

"We're still on our property," Delia started, bored with Deidre's shyness and already wiggling her toes into the mud of the creek's bank, squatting down to snatch at some little fish spinning in circles in the water like little black commas and question marks, "And it's not like we're going in Arkham again, or playing on the yellow tree. We'll be back before she notices, anyway."

Deidre sighed in defeat, maneuvering around some slick stones-with lots of gross green and yellow moss on top-to stand near her sister. She really did like the woods they lived in, she did, it was just that Delia had this knack of getting them—both of them, no matter the circumstances—into lots of trouble. And Deidre didn't want to miss out on the still warm cookies Nanna was cooking.

Delia snatched at the closest, and apparently slowest, black question mark fish that was in her line of reach and sight. Its scales rubbed and slimed her palms as she brought it up from the water, thrashing its tail as hard as it could to get away. She sort of thinks of that mythological creature in that old bestiary book Nanna always reads to them…what was it called? It was either a Kraken or a Kelpie. She was sure she was thinking of the ugly one, but she couldn't remember its name and her frustration lead her to tighten her grip on the fish, until it no longer struggled. Much better. Kraken, that was what she was thinking of.

"When did you find this place?" Deidre asked curiously, trying to avoid the water since when she put her fingers to the surface it felt like all the blood in her fingers froze and it kind of hurt.

Delia shrugged, taking the fish in one hand and tossed it like a baseball five feet further into the creek, its body making a pitiful smack against the water on impact. Deidre didn't see it, too busy picking up small, round and smooth stones, all a sort of dull purple or black or even occasionally a light red.

"Found it when you and Nanna were asleep last night."

That got Deidre's attention enough for her to fix into a right strait up position, hands dropping all the stones (exactly seven that Delia could count as they impacted the mud and sand) she had gathered and a sort of horrified look on her face, "You snuck out of the house again?"

"Yeah, so?"

"It was raining! You could have gotten sick with pneumonia or struck by lightning!"

"Lord, you sound like Harley," Delia snickered, hiking up the hem of her dress and jumping into the water.

"Yeah, well…" Deidre pointed, finger rising dramatically as she searched for a good come-back. As she came up with nothing, her finger curled inward, along with her sudden attempt at bravery. She just sort of sighed and bent to pick up the stones, "Okay, so I sound like Nanna—but she is right!"

"Ha!" Delia replied, taking her foot and thrusting it up through the water, splashing around and sending a little squirt of water into her sister's face, "I wore thick, dry socks last night, so I wouldn't get pneumonia! And anyway, lightning hits the tallest thing it can find, or anything with metal in the area. I'm not that tall yet, and was empty handed."

Using the hem of her dress to hold her stones like a nap-sack, Deidre used her hand to wipe the water from the splash out of her eyes, her bangs sticking to her face, "So you didn't even take an umbrella, either."

Delia grinned, dropping her dress hem, the fabric spreading over the water like a blood stain in their sink at home when she skinned her knee too deep and had to wash the dirt out of it, "Nope. Nothing but my pajamas otherwise Harley—"

"Why can't you call her Nanna?"

Delia flicked some water again, this time with a little mud, at Deidre, the clod hitting her twin's open hand this time, "She's not around, so I don't have to. Anyway, if I wore anything else, she would wake up. Remember when we tried to sneak into the kitchen last month to get more cookies and she was waiting at the bottom of the stairs?"

"How could I forget," Deidre replied, a little shiver running up her spine from the memory of seeing a shadowed figure and then a blinding light from a flashlight and silver-blue eyes from that incident. She could see Delia's point. Even if Nanna was a million years old, she could hear and see a lot better than most old people. It was scary.

Delia waded further in, the water coming up to her waist as she got her point across to her sister. It was fun to watch the tiny fish from a moment ago flash and swim away from her and under some lily pads further in.

She heard some shuffling and turned to find Deidre sprawled out on her knees, hands still clutching her dress. The two large stone she had been stepping on had parted, making her little sister do a sort of splitz before her knees gave out. She looked a little like the Indian Princess in one of their fairy tale books, just before her wedding when she was captured and painted on the page having fallen down, hands clutched together and holding her pet monkey. Except, Deidre never looked so dignified when she messed up.

Delia let out a laugh at the look on her sister's face, but it quickly was silenced at the sound that came over the ridge, yards from their location.

"Little princess! Darling! Where are you two?"

Deidre quickly hobbled up, attentive and alert and motioning for her sister to get out of the water and—hurry, hurry, or Nanna would be really mad! They were going to be in so much trouble!

Delia walked at a leisurely pace out of the water, and made it to the bank just as the old woman made it over the ridge. Her wide blue eyes settled on them and she gave out a little noise of surprise and gratitude to the heavens. One for her obviously finding them un-harmed and one for how the two of them looked. Delia was pristine, aside from being a little wet, but Deidre—as always from her escapades with her sister—was dirty and had scrapes along her knees, along with a little blood.

Her eyes narrowed on Delia, but she addressed the both of them, as usual, "Deidre, Delia! What have I told you about wandering off without telling me?"

Delia remained tall and proud and looked directly at Harley, but Deidre ducked her head and averted her eyes in shame as they both answered at the same instant, "To not to."

Giving them each a sort of look that could not really be discerned, Harley sighed and motioned from them to get of the hill so she wouldn't have to come down, "Well…come along. Let's get back to the house before the cookies get cold."

That had them running up beside her in an instant. Actually, Delia ran a little ahead, while Deidre sidled up beside Harley. The younger twin showed the elderly woman the rocks, saying they were for the garden, to make it looked prettier, while Delia rolled her eyes at them, though without actually looking back over her shoulder. She could always sneak back later again.

Delia wanted to see if she could catch more of those question mark fish.


	30. Mephistopheles

This suddenly came to me late last night after spending eight hours cleaning everything. Spring fever does wonders when you're not really paying all that much attention to it.

* * *

**Mephistopheles-:-**

There is a gasp that is so high and so scared and so very much not at all familiar that sounds off next to him, in the night, in the dark, that the very first thing J-Man does is grab the gun under his pillow—a big, heavy sucker that he stole from some seventy year old gangbanger a little while back—and then slowly turn his head to the side.

But, rather than some little nobody that might have snuck into his room after Delia had left—as she always did now, after using him—to do something wicked to him unconscious and unmoving and weak after sex…he found his usual bedmate—mistress, commander, princess, queen who reveled in blood—looking out of herself.

Delia had bitten through her bottom lip, snapping at it when he was inside her an hour ago, but now it was really open and bleeding down those perfectly red lips, across pale white as ghosts and ice skin and dripped down her chin. She was out of sorts and with her lack of clothes; he could see her actually shaking. Her breasts heaved up with sucking up air, and their nipples were sharp marbles with the cold of their current hide-out.

J-Man, out of nowhere, was reminded of Snow White.

He slipped the gun back under his pillow, wrist absently brushing over the small puddle of drool he had let accumulate in his own half-sleep, and when he looked back to her, he found there was something hot and wet shimmering her eyes. Her little hands were at one point gripping the disheveled blankets and then tracing the outlines of her throat. Over her jugular and behind and under her ears.

As like an idiot, what he was trying desperately not to be these days, despite the face of a clown, his hand rested on her shoulder, bringing her eyes flashing toward his.

When her hand made contact with his face, his head swinging to the side and then slowly back again, whatever was in her eyes was gone and he almost spoke. Wanted to say something, though he had no idea what. He had been slapped like this by her, for no reason before, and it meant nothing. But he knew better, and just tried not to cringe as she opened her lips, fingers pushing and pulling her raggedy hair out of her eyes—the green so strong against the white.

"What? What do you want now?"

…Oh boy.

"I…" He stuttered at first, but swallowed that down to continue with his strong voice so she wouldn't get mad—or go mad, like the Clown Prince in psychotic rage, "You had a nightmare."

Her eyes looked above them at the ceiling and she grinned, not smiled, "No. No I didn't."

"You bit your lip," he continued, pointing with his finger and then lightly brushing away the last stray drops from her chin. Her blood always looked out of place around him and he found himself wiping it off on the bedspread. The thought of her even being able to bleed clashed with everyone's beliefs about her.

Through some morbid experimentation of will, Delia did not move to brush the rest of her own blood from her face, but she seemed more like she wanted to graze her tongue over the red line across her lips that should not be there. She didn't though, and grinned more, teeth showing over her lips, no such traces of the blood residual upon her canines.

"It wasn't a nightmare," she finally spoke again, repositioning herself so that the blanket was still not quite over her chest, but only covered her body just above her abdomen, "It was a memory."

J-Man had no response for that; he was surprised she had even continued passed correcting his assumptions and if he continued to question her, she might get angry.

She didn't seem like she was willing to give more away, anyhow as her eyes closed and she went lax—an attempt to get back to sleep or tune him out or both. He would not anger her for the moment. Curiosity was not worth something of his broken and made to bleed to satiate her annoyance and bloodlust.

Taking her lead, he slunk back into his more comfortable sleeping position and as if by some inexplicable need to return to black, he was asleep in moments. His chest heaved and sighed heavily for a moment, both arms wrapping around his pillow, elbow touching his gun, and he turned onto his side, facing away from Delia.

The girl herself didn't quite return to peace, but preferred to remember the memory before tomorrow so she wouldn't get caught up in it during something important. Well, important to most everyone else she worked with. She herself didn't much feel anything when she drifted off while still awake, but the consistent nagging she got from Ghoul and Woof and—on occasion—Chucko, was grating on her nerves. So she would try.

She blinked her eyes open and then closed them finitely, darkness engulfing her and leaving sprinkles of light behind her eyelids.

_Tiny hands clung to the tree's branch. The branch had clipped and broken near in half, dangling on itself and under the little girl hanging off of it, stone concrete. There was no rain, like there was supposed to be this evening, like the weatherman had predicted, and that was the only reason that the wind wasn't whipping about and hurting her chances of getting out of this._

_Arkham's broken windows stared out at her tiny little six year old form, as though wondering with its residual madness from years of housing the truly insane if she would be clever enough to get herself out of this trouble she had gotten into on her own, or succumb to the pains in her hands and upper arms and let gravity bring her down like the heartless bitch she was._

_That thought, for some reason, made her sneer at the empty building and try just as hard to pull herself off._

_Then, a voice, her own—no, not hers, as it was too fucking sweet and shy and sad and __**pathetic**, called out from across the gaping chasm and she caught blue eyes that used to be hers…_

_Just before the branch snapped completely and she fell._

_Except, unlike the reality of the memory and the event, where she fell because she had seen a pair of much older eyes that seemed near blind, but weren't and heard a frail, worried voice with a moll and ended up falling only nine feet and badly spraining an ankle, it ended much worse. The cement collapsed along with the branch's snapping and she fell through, into a pit._

_When she finally came to a stop, she felt her neck snap and the last thing she saw were two sets of blue, blue, blue staring down at her through the darkness._

_And then the blue went away and the last thing she remembered before deep REM sleep took over her entire consciousness—as well as a sudden throbbing in the back of her skull—were green eyes mixed with a smatter of red like her own, and sharp teeth between a pair of red lips not her own._


	31. I Grin at Thee…

Disclaimer: I do not own any characters of merit or associated with DC Animated or otherwise, I make no money from this either. Don't sue me, I have NOTHING!

Okay, now to get Warhawk in on the action. I decided that since he's the son of two heroes and Deidre's the granddaughter of two villains (though does Harley really qualify under that description anymore?) it would be appropriate for their first real meeting, in actuality in the League, to be in a fight. Not like to the death, but, you know, for sparring. Personally, I blame Rose Midnight Moonlight Black for this inspiration…again. Enjoy!

* * *

"**I Grin at Thee…"-:-**

"This is a bad idea."

Clark pears over the railing that overlooks the training room, not looking down at the people that will soon be engaged in a short sparring match to see what the new recruit has to offer the League—like the man in blue is sure a few others across the way or those on the ground absently watching from some other area of the gym, gawking and circling—but rather, he is just leaning up and down so he can really look at Bruce beside him without his own still broad shoulder getting in the way. The much, much more grey and frail man did not look at him, but he was actually focused on the people in the ring or nearby—Terry offering Deidre encouraging words and Barry offering to go get a bucket so she didn't get sick on the floor, and Rex removing his Nth metal as Deidre had set aside her mallet; to make it a "fair fight" as Rex had put it—and was frowning. Deep lined and dark, like the old days.

"But," Clark hesitated, "You said she'd be fine to do this. You said she'd been training with Terry—"

"I know what I said, but that still doesn't change that this is a bad idea. It's like putting an alley cat in a box with a Malamute. Someone's going to get seriously hurt, here."

"I know that Rex can over reac—wait…someone?"

Bruce allowed, for a single blink of a moment that any normal person would miss, a tiny smirk to wiggle across his lips before allowing it to vanish, shrugging his shoulders as he rested them on the railing, "Eh, let's wait and see. I don't like to jump to conclusions."

* * *

"I'm gonna die…"

Terry groaned a little at the sight of his new friend reverting back into a shrinking violet, impossibly frail, at the sight and very possible threat of Rex standing across from them in the training area. The built half-Thanagarian had fully removed his fake wings and his metallic gear, but had retained his helmet and was still… Well, now that Terry observed him and Deidre at the same time, he could understand how very freaked out she was. She was half his size and—Terry would bet—a third his weight, sporting over a dozen stitches under her white jacket and—for this little session of brawling, though all of the older Leaguers would call it something else—without her trick staff. If he was in her body, he may have just said 'screw this' and run.

But, she was tougher than she looked and after that little chat with J'onn and Tim, was apparently feeling up to obliging the League with this little request.

"You'll be fine," Terry assured, Barry just behind him munching a hotdog and an entire sack of cookies he had nabbed from the cafeteria not two seconds ago and resting his behind on the rather large plastic bucket Terry guessed he'd taken from what could have only been the med-wing, "With his wings he's near immovable, but even if he was wearing those, you're way faster. You can use that to your advantage."

"Am I not allowed to decline?" She asked, though only lightly, most likely already giving into defeat here.

"Hey," Barry spoke up, words trying to maneuver around the chewed up collection of food in his mouth, "Just wait until there's an opening and nail him between the legs."

Masked eyes narrowed at the nineteen year old speedster, teeth gritting in a fake smile as he replied back to this little pep talk, "Heh, not helping."

Above them all, the metal bell nailed into the ceiling sounded off three times, leaving the three of them near deaf and clutching their heads. It was go time now and the Dark Knight and Scarlet Speedster each jumped off the raised platform Darling and Warhawk would be doing this upon. When on the ground, they both gave her a little thumbs up, Barry adding a wink in for good measure.

Across the way, Rex walked to the center of the ring, stopping just beside J'onn, who stood to give the ground rules. The Halfling looked radiantly self-confident, arms crossed over his sizable chest and J'onn raised his brow at the way Deidre walked over, head carefully lowered, thumbs twiddling.

"Alright," J'onn started, arms behind his back and under his cloak, respectful and fair, "The rules are simple; best two out of three wins, do not seriously injure each other, if you're down or out of the ring for more than five seconds, you lose. Now shake hands and return to your corners until given the bell signal to start."

Quietly and obviously trying to make a good impression, Deidre offered up her hand and a small, skittish smile to Warhawk.

Rex rolled his eyes, but gave over his own hand. When taking her much smaller one, he gave one squeeze—not at all friendly—and took it away, turning away from her in a whirl and back over to his corner. Merina was waiting for him on his side, a soft smile offered from across the way for the younger girl, at least making an attempt to be friendly.

* * *

As witnesses, all those heroes (retired or otherwise) in the top deck started talking amongst themselves; among them, Tim and Hal stood near, but not too close to Bruce and Clark—both much older men sighing at the actions of Warhawk and both probably thinking that Bruce was exactly right in the assumption that this was not a good idea—with Damian and his…well, friends would perhaps be too much, but nobody else in the Watchtower knew what to call them.

"Ten bucks says that she goes down without a fight," Damian started off, leaning with his elbows over the rails with that horribly familiar grin on his face similar to when he was much younger and much more willing and ready to start fights with anyone that ticked him off.

A quick, sharp, but not too hard slap hit the back of his skull a single moment after the words were out of his mouth and he almost hit his forehead on the railing. He turned and frowned, his elder brother giving him a displeased glare causing the wrinkles at the edges of his eyes to bunch up and his chin and jaw to set. This actually made Damian smile again, in smugness.

"Must you be such a little demon?" Tim growled, one arm bracing against the rail and holding him up—Irey and Lian were giving Dami the same look as the older man, and Colin was just looking down into the ring as Rex stretched before the bell rang and Deidre whispered something to Terry that—if Colin was reading their lips correctly—might have been a request to get her out of there and now.

"Oh, come on," Damian replied, spinning so his back was to the ring—he could turn before anything happened anyway, "Everyone's thinking it."

"Yes, but they at least have the decency not to say it out loud," Tim answered back.

"I think it'll end in a tie," Lian cut in, ignoring the look Tim was giving and the sudden smirk of Damian as she was an Arrow and not afraid of either. Irey elbowed her gently, but also had a rather anxious feeling about her, a mother to the end and to all young ones even when they weren't her own.

* * *

J'onn settled outside of the ring and with a little flick of his wrist, the switch to the bell went off and an ungodly clang sounded.

Both opponents made for the center of the ring again; Rex with his known, smooth walk, dominant and so in control that his parents from their area grinned quietly, John crossing his arms over his chest to get comfortable leaning against the wall, and Shayera's wings moving up in pride. Deidre just lightly circled away from him, arms sort of drawn up in a meek attempt for defense she had seen in boxing.

Rex made the first move. A typical bait and switch maneuver that gave the impression that he was about to strike her in the face with a closed fist, when in actuality—just as she brought her arm up to defend—he slid in a downward motion and kicked her legs out from under her.

She didn't catch herself and practically everyone in the room cringed when her back hit the floor flat-out and her head hit the ground.

Above, Clark slapped the palm of his hand to his forehead and Bruce sighed, leaning harder on his cane, knuckles probably the same color as Terry's as Barry held back the current Dark Knight around the waist.

Rex grinned, but the move on his face was swiftly taken care of. He got a little too close and her right foot hooked under his left. The next thing he knew, she was up and he was on his back, her making a quick back flip and landing out of his reach before J'onn counted to three.

Above them both, Damian gave a groan. Maybe he had underestimated her too much.


	32. Curses, Curses, Curses

Forgive me, but adding more characters to the fray was well worth this effort and any backlash administered because of it.

Oh, and just for my own amusement, I have reviewed the DC Animated Wonder Woman movie and found that Thrax has no voice, so I picked one for him. He is voiced, if you will indulge me, by Laurence Fishburne, AKA the voice of Thrax from Osmosis Jones… Oh come on, we're all thinking it, anyway.

* * *

_Let us carve him  
As a dish fit for the Gods.  
-Julius Caesar._

* * *

**Curses, Curses, Curses-:-**

Rex knows just how badly he is going to be yelled at by the new Bat when he comes up next week with the clown girl for a joint mission, but he couldn't help himself.

Of course, with that said, he should probably have remembered to block those dainty little legs when they kicked out from underneath him in their spar and hit him directly in the face, splitting his lip and causing his nose to bleed. He also should never have insulted Harley, and probably remembered what Merina had said going into the spar—"Just because she's on our side now, doesn't mean she won't bite back when you when you bite first."

Which basically translated that the clown could be a real bitch when she wanted to be.

"I think she cracked my tooth," Rex muttered more to himself than Merina as she checked him out in the infirmary. Bats and Flash had already taken the clown back down to Earth—both of them grinning at him with a shit eater's face on their way out—to check her out at the manor or wherever, and if he was being entirely truthful, he wouldn't have had it any other way.

Merina gave the half-Thanagarian a 'most probably' look, grabbing some ice packs from inside the freezer that also kept some blood meant for League member's more prone to injury. It was disgusting, but the doctors they had on staff assured them that it was fine to keep them in the cold box, as long as nobody was stupid enough to put food in with it. It hadn't happened yet, but Rex would prefer all blood to be fresh when pumped into him, thanks so much people in white coats and stethoscopes.

Kai-ro continued to levitate beside the sterile bed Rex sat atop, a pensive look upon his young face as he surveyed the damage inflicted upon the taller—and much less mature—man.

Rex had gained quite a set of bruises that had already begun to set in. Darling Quinn had given Warhawk a zero on the hostility reading until Rex had made a snide comment about Harley and how an inability to fight when the opponent's back wasn't turned must have run in the family. It seemed that, even though the china doll looking girl couldn't lay a punch—not as far as they could tell thus far—to save her life, when she was pinned down with her face touching the floor she was rather flexible with her legs. She had brought her legs around Rex's head like something from Cirque Du Soleil and before the Halfling knew what was happening, he had been the one on the ground—with the fine lady sitting on his chest.

The small Lantern could actually see where Darling's knees had impacted Rex's chest and a few of his ribs. They were red now but come tomorrow morning they would probably be a sort of purple color with pink and darker red rimming them.

"You must admit that her combative skills are quite…commendable?" Kai spoke gently, trying to get Rex's mind off of the bump on the back of his head as Merina treated it.

Rex scoffed quite openly at the phrasing that was Kai's basic way of saying—politely as possible—that the girl did a great job of proving that she could at least kick the half-Thanagarian's ass.

* * *

"You look more sour than usual, Dami."

Still with his snarling, unbelieving and gradually more and more irritated expression set in stone upon his face, Damian turned away from the cackling hens that were his friends and boyfriend to look at the fairly amused Static. Tim had wandered off with his and Damian's nephew already—spouting about not wanting to anger Fatgirl further and that they needed to get back—so the Wayne heir was looking to vent to anyone but those already seated with him. Considering he rarely spoke to Virgil, this was an opportunity to bitch and moan to someone who hadn't heard him a million times already.

Not that he would actually bitch and moan. He wasn't a woman. He simply lost a bet—but _still_…

"Static, how pleasant of you to join us in the Seventh Circle," Damian greeted, tuning out Irey as she spouted off to them about Barry and how his grades were improving, as well as occasionally speaking about Jay and his never-ending quest to capture the killer robot that she didn't have the heart to tell her son was actually a friend of the new Batman (pitiful little ginger) "I take it you want to talk about my father's replacements' hench wench?"

At this point, Lian looked away from Irey just long enough to bat the back of Damian's head. Where upon she promptly went back to the conversation with the gingers.

Seeing as this was the fifth assault to his person in the last hour and he was tired of her doing it where she knew there was a scab and bruise from his last mission in Seattle, Damian did not give her the satisfaction of snapping at her not to do that—it never worked anyway—and excused himself, huffing and heading for the back of the cafeteria to order (and terrorize) a fancy named coffee drink from Alexa.

This left his seat open for the time being and Static lightly tapped Colin's shoulder, gaining his attention even more with a tiny little shock—almost like the kind caused by a leather gloved hand sliding over a silk blanket and then onto a pet cat, "Mind if I take this seat and interrupt your conversation to understand why Mary Sunshine is more like Cruella Deville than usual?"

Colin nodded politely, allowing the girls to chat on about their current topic—what would be a better color for Irey's kitchen, Sugar-N-Spice or Walnut Wash—without him. Somehow the prospect of talking with another guy was more appealing than talking about kitchens and redoing the paint on walls.

"Dami's just mad," Colin filled in politely, Static taking the seat and ever mindful of Damian's voice echoing about the cafeteria about vanilla and how to pour it and other such things that would probably get his assed really kicked if Thrax were back from his mission to see the terrified look on Alexa's face along with her shaking, "He lost thirty dollars to each of us when he upped the odds on a bet we made about…I'm sorry, I forgot Batman's new partner's name."

"Darling Quinn," Both Irey and Lian echoed for a moment, before going back to speaking in that special language only women really understood.

"Right, thank you. He upped the odds on her losing to Warhawk in that spar session," Colin supplied, cringing at the sound of Damian snapping at Alexa about ice and chocolate chip fragments getting into his drink.

Static smiled, eyes above Colin's head and observing Thrax come in through the cafeteria's swinging doors, all sweaty and gross from whatever battle he had been in, long white hair having a couple streaks of bloody run-off from a cut along his forehead, his double sided ax still gripped in his hand and his pace aimed in the direction of Alexa to brighten his day, "He didn't expect Rex to make such a bonehead move as to insult Harley's memory?"

"I don't think any of us did," Colin smiled knowingly, sipping from his own lukewarm cup of sugared down coffee, "But I do admit that I was pretty surprised when she made that maneuver with her legs tucked over her head."

"Yeah, but the result was kind of awesome," Static laughed. Colin did so as well, both ignoring Thrax's voice yelling at Damian about delicate women and chivalry and other such things that involved clanging as he chased the brunette into the kitchen, Alexa making tentative, but altogether ignored objections over the violence that both men preferred to being civil to anyone for long periods of time (although, secretly, it was nice to be defended by someone other than Diana), "Who knew that someone who weighs less than a hundred pounds could toss someone that far and hard and into a wall?"

"Not I," Colin smiled.

As an even louder clang echoed, both men turned and, with no hesitation, ducked down when a frying pan came hurtling towards them. Their heads were successfully saved from receiving as concussion as the pan bounced off a table—empty and alone—nearby. Lian and Irey didn't even stop talking as the two men came back up and looked over towards the front. Thrax had tripped over a bottle of creamer, allowing Damian to bolt out of the cafeteria's double doors, nearly knocking over Micron on his way out, laughing evilly as he made down the hall.

"You snobbish bastard," Thrax yelled, getting back up as Colin sighed from his chair, "Get your ass back here and apologize!"

Colin and Static both cringed as they caught the far away but still very clear off Damian made from down the end of the hall, still laughing apparently, "Make me!"

The ginger beside the mocha colored man slapped his hand to his forehead as Thrax gave a guttural war cry, grabbing his ax and practically tore one of the swinging doors off of its hinges on his way out of the cafeteria to give chase to the stuck up bastard. Damian was still laughing as Thrax cursed in pursuit.

Static coughed into his hand and stood from his seat in about the same instant as Colin, the ginger bringing his cup with him as they both tucked their chairs in to follow the two crazy males before they killed each other or someone else, waving Lian, Irey and— absently, as an afterthought—Alexa, goodbye on their way out the door.

Virgil was the one to continue the conversation, he and Colin side stepping the debris of slashed wall and ceiling in Thrax and Damian's wake, "Did this bet include Damian training the little lady?"

"And the new Batman."

An even bigger smile crossed Virgil's features, "Any way I can get you can tape the sessions for me? Or call me when they're scheduled to go to your house or whatever? Me and Richie get bored easy these days."

"As long as you help me cook when they're over."

They seemed to enter the training room—still a mess from Quinn and Warhawk's fight—now made even more uninhabitable by Thrax and Damian sparring with anything they could pick up and fling at each other. Like children flinging mud with rocks imbedded in them.

"Deal."


	33. The Blue Line

Yay, I have finally gotten around to the chapter in which Deidre gets a live-the-life-right job from Barbara. Bully for me since this took an eternity to get done.

Small word: Yes, the characters here have been hidden in the show, but they don't actually have names other than 'Cop 1', 'Cop 2', 'Cop Random Number Here' or Lieutenant, so I had to improvise. I get very uncomfortable making OCs, and just prefer taking characters already visible to the eye and breathing new life into them….I know, I'm a freak…

But yes, Sanchez, Duquesne, Alcana and Bullock are visible. Episodes and their parts within them are: Bullock was the cop with the mustache in "A Touch of Curar'e". Duquesne and Alcana were the cops who spoke to Mr. Watt in "Golem", as well as Sanchez being mentioned by name also in "A Touch of Curar'e". Sanchez is the taller cop who had one very short speaking part in "Heroes".

Alright, enough of my blathering. Enjoy the chapter!

* * *

**The Blue Line-:-**

Black business dress—prim, proper, reaching well below her knees and oh so dignified—with red button-up shirt—quite proper if one of her stitches popped and she started oozing blood again—and black shoes that she can do her job in without falling or breaking something. Deidre looks the picture of a young, but very sophisticated woman with her hair pinned into a tight bun (can't be too careful since she _has_tripped on it before) and a battered briefcase Barbara said she might need if sent out to pick up things from various other districts.

She had the outfit, nobody would ever recognize her as long as she went through the back door to the building—well away from the _booking department_—and she had the fake credentials. Barbara had enlisted her services in the department under the name Deidre Larkin, and said she would only be doing simple, gofer jobs. She'd refill the coffee whenever it was out, bring in donuts—baked by herself or bought, Barbara wasn't picky—answer the phones and take messages and, above all since it would keep her out of sight as well as really get her a paycheck, go up to the room above Barbara's office and re-file, categorize and shelve over forty years worth of actual paperwork, evidence and misplaced department treasures.

It was a dream job for someone who needed money, quiet and to stay out of sight—like Witness Protection, only dumbed down—and yet…Barbara was still having a little trouble getting her to take the elevator.

"Just don't freak out," Barbara sighed, lightly pressing the palm of her hand against the girl's back as the blonde practically clung to the wall of the elevator, muttering under her breath about the introduction to '_Speed'_and cables breaking, "This elevator is safe. And to think that you climb rooftops and take bullets sometimes."

"I can't help it!" Deidre squeaked, gripping the braces the elevator provided as the steal box started upward, "Nanna warned about these stupid things always breaking down when she was young and that it was always safer to take the stairs and—Oh thank God!"

The little chime installed into the door of the elevator buzzed merrily, alerting them that they had made it to their destination in all of fifteen seconds and Deidre was prepared to launch herself out of the thing. Right up until they actually opened and revealed a very tall man, maybe a little less than half of Barbara's age, with dark hair and an even darker mustache.

At which point Deidre practically felt her insides shrivel up and didn't even notice when she took a step to stand right beside Barbara. Like she was a sort of invisibility cloak to guard against someone the blonde had never actually met, but had, well sort of seen in her other existence… And heard stories about from her grandmother… And feared about as much as the Catholics felt guilty about everything…

Barbara smiled in a faux friendly manner from Deidre and then towards her lieutenant, her own hand resting against Deidre's back and pushed her forward so they could get to her office, "Detective Bullock, you're in fairly early this morning."

The man was tall, well trimmed, with the slightest traces of well defined muscles lined along his black button-up shirt—made even more apparent by the black back support lines all cops in the department wore that came with a gun holster—and when he allowed the Commissioner to exit the metal box, he allowed for a moment one of his eyebrows to lift at the skittish looking girl with her. She seemed to be avoiding all eye contact with him as she and Barbara exited the elevator, but this, really, was no surprise. If she was enlisting in the academy, it was expected that she knew exactly who he was as he had quite the reputation of scaring the hell out of all recruits and rookies. If she was simply one of Gordon's relatives…eh, he had the habit of scaring the average citizen as well. He blamed his father really, for teaching him such tactics. If he had learned intimidation from his mother, he could never break criminals at all, though, so maybe he should count his blessings…

"Hello, Commissioner," Bullock greeted, as pleasant as his voice allowed him to be, "Is this your… niece, or something?"

Both of the women's blue eyes glanced at each other a moment—very slight and with a silent calculating air about it—before each giving off a chuckle and slight, but short bark of laughter. This caused Bullock to tilt his head, but continue after them. There was datapad clenched in his hand that he needed to give Gordon, but that could wait at least for the moment.

"No, detective," Barbara grinned—perhaps one of the first ones that were filled with humor he'd ever seen her give—opening the door to her office and pointed the blonde over to her ancient coffee maker, "This is Deidre Larkin. She used to work for my ex-husband, but she'll be my new secretary from now on. Deidre, this is detective Ray Bullock."

Deidre had the coffee maker in both hands at the moment, having lightly set her satchel in an out of the way position next to Barbara's one tree she kept in the corner and not too close to the light. She hesitantly made eye contact with the much taller individual and gave a teeny-tiny smile, "Hello, it's nice to meet you."

Bullock nodded, giving a polite half-smile and then immediately looked back at the Commissioner, putting the datapad upon Barbara's desk, "I thought you might want to see this before your husband comes in later."

Barbara took the pad, finger pressing the side switch and the light that illuminated off of the screen caused her glasses to turn blue to Bullock and Deidre. It sort of made her look scary, but not too badly, "What's this?"

"The new toxicology report on those splicers we arrested last night," Bullock supplied, all but forgetting Deidre as she stood and awaited her first orders, coffee maker still in hand, "Cuvier and his guinea pigs have upped the dosage on a couple of his more reliable men and the anti-venom you got from that good Samaritan didn't work when we locked them up."

Good Samaritan, in the GCPD, was actually code for Batman. Nobody seemed to want to believe that the Gotham legend had returned from what seemed like death in a much younger form, and this nick-name had been developed by the senior squad members to keep the rookies from getting too hopeful. It also worked when the DA and IED were breathing down their necks about evidence that had appeared from thin air. Barbara knew this and—from the look that appeared on Deidre's face at the tone Bullock had used on emphasis—so did everyone in the Gotham hero business.

"Have you sent it to the lab?" Barbara asked, still looking over the files, diligently.

"They said I needed your permission first. It's five-hundred a test run," He answered, shrugging nonchalantly.

Barbara cringed at the estimate on such a test, but nodded, setting down the pad to rummage around in her desk, "Fine. I don't want those people transferred until they get an anti-venom. Go to the lab and tell them that they have my okay. But, do me a favor on the way out."

"Yes, Commissioner?"

Smiling, the grey haired woman brought her head up from looking about inside of her drawer, hands still in the guts of paperclips and paperwork and rubber bands, "Grab Alcana or Duquesne and tell them that they get to play tour guide."

Bullock raised a brow before Barbara continued, "Deidre needs to know where the kitchen is, where the copy machine is, the stairs out of the back and how to get upstairs. I have no time to do it myself, so go and get one of them."

The man nods in understanding and leaves, the door swishes twice despite its weight and the two women are left alone again. Silence reigns for just a moment, both listening as Bullock's heavy footfalls leave their earshot and Barbara finds herself holding up the datapad, a question on her lips.

"You'll look this over later on with Terry. The techs certainly won't get the results quicker than Bruce and you need more training in this area."

Deidre allows a small, nervous look to cross her face again, but simply nods. Barbara knows that the blonde probably knows more about chemicals than Terry does and is really only being polite about including the slightly older teen. He needs more training in this area, yes, but not her. So she accepts the order with a graceful nod and goes onto a different, more daunting subject.

"So that was Detective Bullock and Montoya's son? He looks… Nanna had pictures of his parents. He seems to take after his mother weight-wise, doesn't he?"

This earns her a true laugh from Barbara, the white haired woman going to her computer to look over things she had started last night, but stopped so she could do them in the morning so she could get home to Sam, "Harley certainly didn't stop short on history. Though, I do agree with you. Ray does take after Montoya in most respects, save for his detecting skills. Got that lot from Harvey."

"Yes," Deidre spoke, trying not to fidget with the coffee pot in hand, "Um, Alcana and Duquesne? They wouldn't be related to those women in that incident with—"

"The Batwoman? Hm, surprised you know about that."

"Forty-two years, Babs," the blue eyed girl shrugged, moving for the door to open it as she heard footsteps and a set of voices grumbling, "That's a lot of time to get information and anything else Nanna wanted when she was bored."

Before Barbara could ask about the nickname—though she knew the girl probably had gotten it from Harley, so there was really no need to ask—Deidre opened the door and two familiar officers were in their line of sight, the taller one's hand stretched out to knock.

The man was tall and broad shouldered, standing at the very least at 6"5. He had sort of red-brown hair—kind of like a penny when it rusts a certain way and looked like it was bleeding—that really clashed with his black and blue clothes, but also made him look like he should stand on the cover of some teen magazine selling…something for the gym, maybe.

The woman was a brunette and a good head shorter than the man, standing beside him with her arms crossed and not nearly appearing as startled at the two women with the Commissioner's office staring at them expectantly to come in. She might have been on the force a little longer then the man, but Deidre couldn't really tell.

"Alcana, Duquesne, come in," Barbara ordered, going back to clicking about her keyboard, near ignoring their very presence.

"Detective Bullock said you wanted us, Commissioner?" The woman—Duquesne—asked, stepping in without giving Deidre so much as a nod after looking at her. He partner did the exact opposite and gave her a friendly smile as well as a nod.

The blonde tried not to roll her eyes at him.

"I would like you two to show Deidre around the station," Barbara continued, pointing absently from the two police officers to the dainty little thing standing off to the side, "She's my new secretary and needs to know where to find the kitchen, the floor above us, the copy machine, maintenance, the directory to contact the other departments for when she's on the food and, while you're at it, give her the addresses to all of the fast food restaurants she needs to go to when everyone has to stay in and actually work."

Duquesne looked less than pleased that they were to play chaperone rather than being sent out on an actual assignment. Alcana couldn't stop that stupid smile from returning to his lips, head tilting her way to reply to the Commissioner.

"It would be a pleasure—"

"Alcana," Barbara cut him off in a warning, looking sort of like how Deidre remembered Harley looked the first time Delia wore a skit the was way above her knees, "She sixteen. Don't even think it."

That blinding smile and look of intense interest left his face and was quickly taken over—like the fires that plagued London a century or so ago—by a look of horror and him looking anywhere but at Deidre for a moment. His eyes looked over her face, her legs, went to Gordon, the leather satchel that he was unfamiliar with in the corner and then finally settled upon his own personal safety zone of Duquesne's ass.

"Oh—kay, boss," Alcana finally said, taking the lead and walking out the door, mortified beyond belief and fully prepared to talk until his vocal chords gave out as Duquesne finally acknowledged Deidre and held the door as Deidre repositioned the coffee pot.

Deidre gave one last nervous smile Barbara's way as she walked out, her nerves still on high, but her body taking it out on the coffee pot shaking in her hands. Now was the start of her first actual job and—God willing—she wouldn't screw up big time.

When the door shut behind them, Barbara allowed herself to look at it a moment. A whole three seconds of utter and complete silence descended upon her office, giving her just enough time to take a soothing breath.

And then the phone rang.

Her finger found the button without looking at it, eyes still on the door.

"Gordon in, go ahead."

"Commissioner, it's Sanchez," the voice on the other end answered back—the voice of the officer currently sitting at the station's front desk filling out reports from a bust of three cocaine dealers just seven hours ago, "Just calling to remind you that the DA is coming in later at noon and, um, Paxton Powers is as well."

….Sometimes she wished those moments of peace lasted longer.


	34. Not All Torture

Catch me and break me down, because I have had this idea settled into the crevice of my brain for a week and have Rose Midnight Moonlight Black to thank for it. It's not exactly what was requested of me, but certainly has the characters she picked. So I shall thank her again. And again. And once more!

* * *

_What would it pleasure me to have my throat cut with diamonds? Or to be smothered with cassia? Or to be shot to death with pearls?  
-The Duchess of Malfy._

* * *

**Not All Torture-:-**

Paws touch down on the ivory and navy blue couch like snow falling on cedars and a pair of curious eyes look upon the dark young lady in the cat's favorite spot.

Max is typing her usual five hundred words a minute and is sort of lost in the dark nexus of computer data she had been fishing within for information on Joker's Daughter ever since she had hopped the million dollar car Bruce owned with Terry after school. She had started looking for more information that could help them locate the white skinned nightmare through some connections of that blonde hacker. What was it Terry had called him—Ghoul, right. The guy was probably a little smarter than her, though. She had found one of his connections, but he had left what seemed to be a wormhole at every location she dug up. Sneaky bastard…

Max had not expected that Terry and she would end up in Bludhaven at an apartment complex that had seen better days, three men standing before it, waiting for them.

The tall, tall, broad and—in Max's opinion—freakin' hot ginger had introduced himself and the two brunettes and Colin Wilkes, Damian Wayne and Richard Grayson to Max. Terry had seemed highly uncomfortable when face to face with Grayson, but had not been allowed to dwell on it as Damian had grabbed his arm and dragged him upstairs inside the building. Dick—as Colin said Mister Grayson preferred to be called—simply shook his head, exasperated, and the three of them followed after at a more leisurely pace.

When they had been brought up to the top floor, Max had to admire the place. It was basically a penthouse—though the apartment complex was only three stories—with a wide kitchen complete with an island, giant freezer, sink, counter hugging the wall and a table with three sofas packed around it and kept away from what might have been an entertainment room at one point in its existence. As it stood, the entertainment room was serving as the three brunettes' training area. Mats were set in the center, a few weights and a bench press nearby, as well as a treadmill in the other corner, dusty and just next to a very heavy looking punching bag that would have been set above the mats from a chain dangling from the ceiling, had the guys not been training with their legs and fists.

Max blinked as the small cat—still staring at her in what might have been a very pointed way had it been a human—treaded onto her hip. She almost made to remove it, but then it started kneading her pants, claws digging painfully into her skin and she gave a squeak. Clutching her computer, she removed herself from the couch and glared at the furball—completely trying to ignore what may have been a grin settling on its mouth—as it stole her seat, purring at the warmth radiating from the cushion.

"Keep your knees a little higher," Dick voiced from his spot at the very end of the mats, looking all for the world like a master teaching class while his brother and the teen went at each other for a (and Max could quote) friendly warm up session. In Max's opinion, though, it looked more like Terry wanted to get Damian to stop making belittling comments through shoving his fist through his teeth. The pink haired computer expert wondered vaguely if the much older man—who she thought could have been a shoe-in for Nightwing an eternity ago—was a little too comfortable with this going on.

"Alfred stole your seat?"

Max turns her head back towards the sofa to find Colin standing behind it, a tray of what looks to be coffee and creamer, those tiny little cookies people take with such drinks and what appears to be the cat's bowl filled with milk. She can tell he was talking to her, but he is looking down at the black and white purring monster that has forced her away with a sort of narrowed expression on his face—sort of like a parent ready to nag a child for leaving their dirty shoes in the hallway or something.

"Eh," she shrugged, taking the seat to the right of the cat and the small table—it's big and comfortable and she can't believe she didn't go for this first—so she could back to her digital code, "He can have it. I don't mind."

Colin set the tray down, bending down and giving Max a rather pleasing view of his rear as he took the milk and set it upon the floor, poking the feline once to get its attention, "I swear he gets his personality from Damian. He wouldn't get his way so much if he imprinted on me as his momma, the spoiled little brat."

Max smiled—but that was soon dismissed as she heard first and saw later, Terry flying through the air in a double flip to land nearly on his face five feet from them. Damian appeared even more snide and stood upon the mat waiting for the teen to get back up.

"Dami," Colin scolded, added cream to his own coffee cup, handing Max hers as Alfred ignored the milk altogether to stare at Terry as he got up again and near landed a full-on kick to Damian's head, "You promised you would be civil today."

"If I go out of line Grayson will intervene," the brunette answered back, for once not stepping away in time to avoid Terry doing a move similar to a ballet dancer, spinning around so his back faced Damian, but hooked his leg behind the older man and spun back, causing Damian to lose his balance and land on his ass—for all of five seconds. This gave cause for Dick to give a little, but approving nod in Terry's direction, blue eyes watching as Terry vaulted up to avoid Damian tripping him up.

Colin sighed and took a seat near to Max, on the other end of the sofa Alfred occupied, but took pleasure in sitting with his legs stretched along the sofa to prod the cat with his toes (completely sock free). The feline responded by growling and clutched at the ginger's big toe with his teeth for about a second, letting go in the next instant on account of the last time he drew Colin's blood resulted in Damian grabbing him by the back of the neck, making some loud noises his way, stuffing him in that awful carrier that still smelled like dog from the previous owner, and took him to the V-E-T to cut off his testicles.

The ginger laughed at how Alfred's tongue tickled his skin for that one second and drew his foot away to look over at Max, "Doing your homework?"

"Trying to find leads on Jokerz activities," she explained, finally giving up on the wormhole she had ventured into and turned his computer off to sip her coffee, "It's not going very well, though."

"You are quite an intelligent girl, I take it?"

"Well…" she started, blushing at the way he put it as Terry managed to get behind Damian, grab both his arms, flip him over and body slam him, "I guess. I doubt Terry would have much use for me otherwise."

"I'm sure that's not true. But, enough on that, how is life in Gotham these days?"

Max tipped her head back to get the last traces of coffee from her cup and they both tried to ignore the three brunettes as Terry was held down with his face to the floor, Damian sitting on his head and Dick trying to make him knock that particular trick off.

"Where do I begin?"

"I hear Terry has a girlfriend," Colin offered, leaping out of his spot to get his coffee pot (the cute, lowly one that most teens wouldn't have seen anywhere but on Antique Rodeo), "What's she like?"

"She's nice, thoughtful, kind, smart," Max replied, ticking off Dana's good points, "More tolerant than anyone our age should be with Terry's hectic nightlife "working" for Mr. Wayne. That should say something."

"How long have they been dating?"

"Officially? Since he got out of Juvie, but they were making gaga eyes at each other when they were in junior high…and I'm pretty sure he had a massive crush on her the first time they saw each other in the first grade."

"Max!"

The pink haired girl and ginger grinned over towards their respective best friends (and forever boyfriend, in Colin's case); Terry blushing as hard as a Catholic school girl while simultaneously glaring at the dark girl, sitting on top of Damian's chest with his knees—the Wayne heir smirking at the girl. If Max didn't know better she'd think Damian could use this against Terry, but then, he knew that Grayson would start teasing him about how he had been with Colin forever and not gotten married. A topic he was not at all willing to get into within earshot of the teen holding him down, thanks so much.

"Do I say anything that wasn't true?" Max asked innocently, munching one of the cookies with that usual grin offered up mostly around Terry.

"That's not…that's…it's none of their business to know about me and Dana! Stop it!"

"How about him and Demon's Spawn?" Damian asked, using his legs to clutch Terry's head and change positions—him near straggling the teen onto the mat.

At this point, Max swallowed the cookie and gave Damian a dirty look at his reference to Deidre, "She suggested he tell Dana that Deidre's working for Mr. Wayne's ex-wife, but nothing like I'm sure you're thinking of."

"…Not even a little sex?"

"Damian!"

This exclamation came simultaneously from Dick and Colin at the same time—both actually crossing their arms like they were his parents rather than his lover and older brother. Max grinned at how annoyed he looked.

The look didn't last long, though. Terry took that opportunity to slug him across the jaw and took a double shot at kicking him in the groin.


	35. A Boiler's Room Lullaby

And this was written for an in-between of chapters **Not All Torture** and **The Blue Line**. I find myself feeling needlessly guilty over the fact that I have hinted at the relationship between Terry and Dana, but other than in the beginning, have not added Dana as an important element. This idea popped into my head to further her use in this fic. Well, her and most of the people Terry finds himself with other than Max during school hours. Please, please, please tell me how well this goes as I have no idea if it's any good using people like Nash, or Blade, or—and here I like to think that I'm getting more comfortable with the fact that Terry has surrounded himself by females—Chelsea.

And this chapter is especially dedicated towards _Theban-Rune_ for the kick-ass review she gave to my other fic 'Quiet Life' and brightened my day. Also, this chapter is to assure everyone who reads this (the short supply that there is) that I am NOT going to—in any way, shape or form—pair Deidre up with Terry. No sir, thank you very much; that would be like some level of incest through history.

* * *

**A Boiler's Room Lullaby-:-**

"You should really tell your girlfriend about me."

The heavily concentrated blend of fresh morning coffee Terry had found himself swallowing down like important medication every day at six in the morning since he had started working for Bruce, suddenly found its journey stopped precariously from the straw it was contained in to his lips.

Terry had been enjoying the fact that Deidre had volunteered last evening after training in the bat cave—all four hours of her surprisingly strong legs tripping him and winning near every round—to take him and Max to school in her car. Actually seeing her outside of the apartment in the very old red convertible Harley had given to her had been quite a reassuring sign that she was getting more confident in leaving the safety of shadow and night and such things. It had made him wake up all the way and grin all the way to Max's apartment where the computer savvy lady was highly amused to see his hair all windswept and like a dog and Deidre offering some sugared doughnuts she had baked around five that morning (why she was up that early was apparent as she was a little worried over Terry's going to train in Bludhaven with Damian and Dick—god forbid they actually drop by the manor first).

He should have known that the backlash would be quick—like tearing off a band-aid made of duct tape.

Max's eyes travelled from her open laptop and up to the two of them in the front. The cars with the ability to hover whizzed right by them and out of her peripheral vision she could see all of the billboards and shop windows that she generally paid no attention to when on the elevated train of bus—but this was quite a bit more interesting. The leather of the backseat reminded her—in this moment—of being in a really fancy theater.

Terry swallowed the bottom dregs of the coffee and spoke finally, "…Okay, where did that come from?"

Deidre made a gentle turn on the road, the tires sleeking along the inside of a puddle and leaving tracks in their wake, her hair breezing up like a flag for a moment, "It's just… it occurred to me that she knows who I am, right? If she finds out by running into me or calling Bruce up to know where you are and being told that I'm taking a shift for you, well, she might not be as understanding as you'd hope. She might think you're cheating on her with me."

"Dana's more understanding than that," Terry said, though his words were less sure than he would have liked them to come out as.

"You may think that," Deidre sighed, turning the car again and Max in met with the echoing sound of car horns and traffic as they pass under a bridge, "And maybe you're right. But, B-Man, you have to understand that she is still a person. Like, if you caught her with some guy you'd met before, but didn't actually know, how would you react?"

Max caught the flicker of a dark look that flashed over Terry's face that Deidre couldn't as she waved another three cars to take a turn before she could; the blue of Terry's eyes glinted back to normal rather quickly, but it still didn't change that the blonde had a point.

"It's just like that with you and me," she continued, right hand pointing from her to him and back before resting upon the leather of the steering wheel.

Terry took another sip from his coffee, a flock of birds fluttering out of some bushes as they turned another corner and could just see a practical herd of teenagers on their own way to Hill High. The birds flew near the side of the car and Max shut her computer, feeling almost as though she could reach out and grab them before they all made a quick change in the position of their wings and flashed up into some trees that were the last bit of greenery on the way to school.

"Then what does that make Max," Terry tried, a joke in his voice, "A third-wheel."

"It doesn't even matter that she's here—no offense, Max."

"None taken. I get where you're going with this."

"What? Where, where are we going with this?" Terry asked, taking one of the last doughnuts placed between driver and shot-gun seats, completely lost.

Deidre offered up the first real smile Max had ever seen while in her presence and her blue eyes continued to follow the road when she answered, "Even if Max is here, Dana would still assume that you're doing something less than scrupulous with me. She doesn't actually know me as anything other than one of the twins that shot at you, or the girl who had some minor authority to send away those Jokerz who were going to get into it with you at the dance floor. And quite frankly—and speaking as someone who knows—I couldn't blame her. If I was in her place, I would freak out."

"Same here," Max spoke up, grabbing another doughnut—girl could really bake the glazed and powdered little balls of sweetness.

"I could explain that!" Terry practically shrieked, arms moving in front of him as if to defend himself, the coffee sloshing inside of its cup and obviously getting situated along the cap.

"No you couldn't," both girls simultaneously assured, the sight of the school getting closer and closer and this conversation winding down to prove Deidre right as Terry started sucking on his straw, teeth making indentations in his exasperation.

He was suddenly wondering why he had so many female friends that could out-talk, out-think and generally out-wit him. True, he did have guy friends, but that just included Jarred and people from the League…

"Okay, fine," Terry conceded, letting go of his straw as Deidre parked at the very end of the parking lot. Max and him were going to have to walk the whole tarmac, as Deidre would not risk any confrontation and had no desire to even leave the car unattended. The car was old, but she had almost had it stolen enough times to know better by now (though, the fact that she was actually _going to work_with Barbara today might have had much more to do with it), "I'll tell her as soon as the situation presents itself."

The blue eyed girl and the dark eyed girl shared a look at the way he had worded that, but nodded to each other. Or, Max nodded to Deidre in the unspoken way girls often did to assure the other that they would be sure to make sure that when someone said they would do something—i.e. men in general—the other girl would make sure it got done.

Terry opened the door for Max and both of them grabbed their stuff for school, the brunette opening the door for the pink haired young woman. Max snatched up one last doughnut, though, giving a 'thank you' to the blonde for the ride as well as the food around the sweet in her mouth.

As Deidre's red car moved backwards, they both waved—and Deidre did as well, though only for so long as she had to avoid a rather new, top of the line model of a car spinning into the lot, noise pouring out of the window that all could hear—and moved for the school doors. They both actually smiled as Deidre's own music (a sweet, old fashioned blend of music from the 1900's) was the last thing they acknowledged as her on her way away.

* * *

The noisy, recklessly moving car that had near skimmed into Deidre's car skidded to a halt in one of the front rows near the school. The tire had left skid marks on the dusty ground, some leaves that had fallen from the trees decorating the lunch area courtyard being squished into the pavement as well.

The noise inside the car was cut off right in the middle of some rocker with a voice affected no doubt by chain-smoking singing "_The role of personality in illness is the foundation_—click".

Nelson Nash opened the door to his car and surveyed the general area as he locked up his baby. The keys jingled twice on the way into his pocket, the little red dog-tag he had gotten from Blade for his last birthday—the one where they were still together, not the one where he had screwed up really huge and ended up going out with his buddies until two in the morning at a bar with his fake I.D.—rubbing under his thumb as he zipped his windbreaker. He adjusted his black sunglasses, looking about the front of the school for Blade or Chelsea. Nothing like a lady to keep him from getting bored before classes.

Instead, he was met with Dana Tan walking out into the parking lot—arms full of homework—with a slightly condescending look on her face directed at the ginger.

"Nash," she started off, ignoring the swift wind that fell over both of them as well as the people everywhere else, chill sweeping up her back despite her heavy red turtleneck and faded jeans that did a good job of covering her up, "Why is it that whenever you come onto school grounds, someone's car almost gets demolished?"

"It's not my fault that people can't get out of the way when I make my entrance," he scoffed, hands out in front of him as if in surrender for something that he had no idea he had done to get yelled at. Or to receive the narrowing of eyes from the gorgeous Asian woman.

"It amazes me that you can't get Blade back," she speaks again, though with a lot more sarcasm and thinly veiled contempt.

Nelson clenches his teeth and is about to respond—something biting and witty to behold, no doubt—but his words are taken away by another voice sounding a little too close for his comfort as it is the vocalized being of a person he had perhaps thought friendly enough at one point in time before they had started duking it out after the other had gotten back from juvie and before his father had been killed. Damn.

"Dana!"

Eyes sparkling now, Dana looked almost through Nash and used her whole right arm to balance her school supplies, the other moving up in a wave motion—thin and petite and ivory—at her boyfriend, all smiles, "Terry, Max, good morning!"

When the seventeen year old standing at exactly Nash's height comes over from along the back of his car, the ginger rolled his eyes behind his sunglasses—anything not to actually have to watch as the two brunettes shared a 'Hello, good morning' kiss with each other. However, once his eyes made the whole clockwise and around turn, he found his sights on Max and the supremely attractive, curvy orange top that fit the lines along her sternum beautifully.

"Are we done with the lecture now, Tan?" Nash said, diverting Terry and Dana's attention away from each other long enough for them each to give him a 'look', and Max enough time to roll her eyes rather like he had, though counter-clockwise.

Dana's arms were circled around Terry's neck and she allowed herself not to roll her eyes—or narrow them in an even more condescending way—but did not contain herself enough to keep the light scorn from her voice box, "For now. If you're looking for Blade, she's down in the gym doing something with Chelsea that involves their pompoms and cheerleading."

"I'm gone," he grinned, whisking himself away and in the exact direction she had trailed her own bread crumbs along.

All three of the other teens waited until the ginger was out of sight—as well as out of their hair—until speaking again, Terry and Max giving Dana an all-knowing smile; as if to say she was a genius without her revealing the trick to that bit of magic she had performed on all of their behalf.

"Where are the Queen Bees, really?" Max asked as Dana finally let go of Terry's neck, all of them heading for the school's front stairs that were positioned outside of the glass wall that served to showcase swimming classes or events that school board put on for teens trying to get scholarships through being fast under the water.

"Trying to study up on the Suffragette moment at the turn of the last century before that test at noon," Dana answered smoothly, Terry offering up his arms to take her supplies, "Chelsea did near all of it with me last night and Blade suckered her into copying her notes in exchange for that shirt Blade got last week with the silver sequins. Still, Chelsea didn't stick around late enough last evening to get the last five answers, so they're in the library."

"That's my girl," Terry smirked, rubbing her back as they walked the stairs, the sounds of the school buzzing about them like a never-ending echo rhythm. Like bees in a mass hive, or hornets around a bear's head.

They walked in a comfortable silence for another few minutes, but out of the corner of her eye, Max noted that Terry was fighting off a look of discomfort that must come with the insistence Deidre had spoken of earlier. He was trying, very hard and with apparent guilt at the moment, to think of a way to bring up to Dana that now he had a new—sort of, kinda—partner at work with him at Mr. Wayne's.

Max tried not to smirk at a sudden thought, '_Hey, honey, guess what? I can spend more time with you because I picked up this girl in the middle of Kansas. Oh, yeah, she works for Mr. Wayne, but mostly for Mr. Wayne's ex-wife. Do you know her? Yeah…one of her friends tossed you two or so stories off a ledge and she and her twin sister shot at me? Remember her?_'

…Dang, now she actually felt a little guilty about their blonde friend insisting to do this.

Above their heads—compliments of every freaking bell attached above the doorway of most of the classrooms—there came a loud and somewhat ominous ring, near exploding their eardrums. This was where Dana left for her first class in History Studies and Max and Terry had to take a right to head for their class held together in Political Science.

Dana stood on her tiptoes and gave Terry a peck on the cheek, "See you in third period, Ter'."

Terry kissed back, though his aim landed on her nose, causing her to blush crimson along her nose and cheeks, "Yeah. Have a good laugh when Blade screws up."

She laughed at his tone. It wasn't nice, but it was true, so she wouldn't bother chastising him for the time being. She walked away with her sleek, beautiful face smiling, giving Max a nod as she disappeared along the throng of other students, like a sheep among wildebeest.

Terry allowed his smile to last just until Dana and her figure and her hair—for once up in a bun, though he hadn't actually noticed—were out of sight. Then his face turned toward Max, whom was looking at him with that—again—all-knowing look upon her face and he almost lost it.

"Why," he started, an almost hysterical sound along the edge of his voice, "Why is it so hard to come up with a conversation where I don't sound like I've been hiding Deidre? I feel like if I bring her up now, she's some dirty mistress and Dana will, without a doubt, yell at me."

"That's the way it goes, B-Man," Max stated, the nickname generally only used by Quinns rolling off her tongue like a mockery, "I could say we told you so, but that would be inappropriate."

"How am I going to tell her?" Terry whined, clutching his hair with both hands.

"Sorry, Terry, that's something even I don't have the answer to."

The last warning bell rang as they stepped into class, taking their usual seats in the back and with each other; far away from this teacher, as he tended to spit when they had something to do that involved debate. Terry allowed himself a moment to bang his head on the table and Max opened her computer, humming that tune they had both heard when Deidre had left, "…_I just couldn't breathe with your throat on my chest, All night all I hear, All I hear is your heart_…"


	36. Memory Not Lacking

Oh, I cannot believe I wrote this of my own volition, but I felt it was needed. My reviews have been rather open to the idea of my getting around to using Harley more, so this chapter takes place when the Deeds are about, eh, five or so. I tried to write this without being too cliché, but somehow, I don't think I succeeded. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Also, anyone who can catch the two references to the Justice League and Batman TAS episodes get a chapter dedicated in a suggestion and in your honor.

* * *

_There was once a suffering dreamland…I was born there.  
-Felidae._

* * *

**Memory Not Lacking-:-**

The candle that smelled like denim cleaned and fresh out of a dryer was lit up and cast its lights and therefore its shadows across the room the twins shared at the top of the stairs of Harley's house. It sat on the mirrored table the twins shared (and would continue to share once they were old enough to use makeup) and because of its proximity to the reflective surface, the light crossed over and about the room even more.

The door opened for what seemed to be the fifth time that evening—a regular occurrence as the girls tended to run room to room for fifteen whole minutes, rushing from their bedroom to get their pajamas, to the bathroom for teeth brushing, downstairs (in Delia's case to see if she could snag one more cookie) and back into their room again, each pouncing into their beds.

Delia, in her short and frilly red dress pajamas and with her still wet from her bath hair that reached her shoulders, was through the door first. As always, she twirled twice like a petite ballerina and did one cartwheel until she was at the foot of her bed.

"Ta-da!" She chirped, arms waving outward like the ringmaster at a circus to present herself before the two other ladies of the house.

Deidre, in her white dress pajamas that made her look even more delicate and with her hair dry from the accepted blow dry administered by Nanna, clapped her tiny little hands at the show. It was an awkward maneuver, seeing as her arms were wrapped around the stuffed penguin she had possessed forever, but manageable.

Harley herself hobbled up from behind the younger twin, without her cane and drying her hands from the water residue always the result of washing the girls with a light blue towel. She wasn't very happy about Delia doing that, seeing as she could slip and skin her knees on the hardwood floor or hit her head on the hardwire frame of the bed, but still smiled in her own attempt to be supportive.

"Very good cartwheel, Little Princess," Harley finally sighed out, setting the towel on the knob of the door and steered both of them into their beds, that favorite nickname she had given the elder twin earning her an even bigger grin from Delia, "Now tuck in and bunker down. What story would you two like to hear this night?"

Deidre wiggled into her crisp white covers with the tiny black figures of crows outlining the corners and the middle, the stuffed penguin in her arms being set beside her; Delia bounced twice on her own bed, finally shuffling about the deep red covers with the light green leaves in groups of three like she was trying to fall asleep on a cloud, her own stuffed animal—a battered crocodile—being clutched in her own arms.

"Oh, can we hear the one about The Island of Felidae?" Deidre asked hopefully, the candle's light flickering along the iris of her eyes.

"Or what about The Amazon Plague?" Delia chirped, even more excited at the prospect of an action story before bed.

Harley rolled her eyes, a bit of hair falling across her brow as she tilted her head back and gave a wind-withered chuckle that was more suited to a witch's cackle—nothing she could help, though, her lungs and vocal chords were old and dried out—and pulled one of the little chairs from in front of the desk out to sit on. It served her right to think that the two could ever agree on what type of story to have; Delia always wanted exploit and excitement and Deidre wanted something more mellow and somber. She hoped, maybe sometime, they'd grow out of this habit.

Sitting comfortably, Harley reached an old, withered hand into the pocket of her red dress, clutching at a silver dollar she had been carrying around for upwards of ten years; ever since Harvey Dent died. The slashes cutting across one side of it prickled her fingers as she positioned it for a flip, the face that was clean looking up at her.

"Pick a side," Harley suggested, not giving the twins a chance to think about it as the coin rang out with its flipping.

"Bad head," Delia called first; with Deidre answering in turn with, "Good head."

The coin landed in Harley's palm—like a robin away from its next flying back and perching in its nest once more—and ugly slashes and strokes upon a chiseled face looked back up, metal glinting in the room's light.

Harley felt as though she should chuck the thing out the window for taking Delia's side eight times out of ten, but can't bring herself to get rid of the thing. Instead, she gives a small apologetic nod toward Deidre—who is disappointed for the third time in as many days, but doesn't let it show—and a congratulatory smile to Delia; the elder twin waving her arms above her head like a boxer in the ring after winning a champion fight.

Slipping the coin back into her pocket and trying not to let a frown slip, the old, old woman sighs, exasperated and waits until Delia is done gloating to get on with the words in her head that form the stories she has been reciting since she knew she'd be taking care of the twins by herself so long ago, in the hospital nursery when Harley's daughter didn't come back and she had to name them herself after she received that call from the coroner that worked downstairs in the same hospital the girls were born in.

"Now, settle down," Harley scolded a little, Delia finally letting up and bringing her red, red, red covers up around her shoulders and near her ears, Deidre doing the same, but turning on her side to watch the candle as well as the old woman.

Air and breathing circled into Harley's lungs for a moment, and she began the tale chosen by Delia, the details fuzzy as she hadn't told it in a good long time—months in fact—but not so out of reach as a star in the heavens. Rather, she could call on the memory as well as picking apples in the orchard not far off from this house they lived in.

"There was once a woman who lived on an island with long-lived women that took her in after saving her from storms and war and something that the long-lived women did not speak of with anything other than malice and distrust…"

Both the little girls near held their breath in apt attention. There was nothing in the world like Nanna Harley's stories—they were always so full of detail and cunning none of their story books possessed. All of Nanna's stories out-classed Grimm and Anderson without ever getting tiring.

They could almost believe that what she talked about had actually happened in real life.


	37. Binding

I have read an entire book on Villains and Murderers by the people of Oxford and have finally turned out another chapter on Jokerz and Delia that I find satisfactory, despite all of my hideously haunting doubts about them as a whole. That said, to anyone who reads this; please supply me with the names of the other Jokerz members if you have them! Please?

* * *

**Binding-:-**

The flowers are not really what stop Melanie on her way into Ghoul's area of the hideout. Not really.

But, they're sitting on the kitchen table, away from all of the muck and grime that comes with these slobs, thieves and unadulterated idiots, in a sparkling clean vase and look innocent. Two brand new and without blemishes White Jasmine flowers are sitting under the medium sized hole in the ceiling, enjoying light and the water they are in.

But still, that is not what stops Melanie, with her hands full of three plastic bags of groceries that Ghoul will most definitely help her carry on back to her own apartment. What really stops her is the fact that the two flowers—pure and untouched by the people milling about and making noise that is uncomfortable to the porcelain looking girl's ears—are sort of tied together.

There is something practically invisible holding them together and the only reason she sees it is because the flowers' stems are almost inverted and the veins are pronounced.

"What's so interesting?"

Melanie near shrieks and spins on her heels to sucker punch whoever was behind her. Her hand was actually flying through the air, but was stopped by a much larger hand with calluses not unlike her own wrapping warmly over her fist and dark eyes looking at her with laughter not taking flight through that handsome mouth that she spent the better part of every other day driving her tongue into and sucking on.

Ghoul is wearing that dark grey, knitted scarf she had bought him for their five month anniversary and he looks sort of like one of those really old fashioned artists that once populated downtown Gotham, before the circuit moved to the uptown area, away from the Jokerz taking over their empty buildings once used for galleries. It suits him and covers the bite marks she had left along his neck from two nights ago.

Melanie smiles up at him and, without much preamble, places two of her bags into his open hand, blue eyes looking back over at the flowers, "Those flowers…what's that holding them together?"

Ghoul slings the groceries over his shoulders and glances at the flora, his own dark eyes giving them a once over before he starts herding his girlfriend out of the complex. He will tell her, that much is apparent in his light walk—not at all rushed to get out of the place like he usually is when she asks him about something he is not at all supposed to talk of or is just plain uncomfortable with—but he would much prefer to do so out of earshot of Scab (sitting on the living room sofa and talking like a dreg who knows not what is for his own good to Dot, his dirty socks causing an unbearable smell as his legs were stacked atop the coffee table in front of them) or Cue (raiding the fridge just behind them for anything worth eating and not caring at all when one of the sleek cones of his jester's cap knocked against something for every movement of his head). He still doesn't much care for talking around those lazy, obnoxious idiots. Melanie is fine with that.

Stepping out of the hideout, Ghoul allowed himself a breath and walked beside Melanie, at ease.

"Delia brought those in. That stuff holding them together was her hair."

"…When did she bring them in? Or, for that matter, why tie them up with her hair," she asked, her voice still quiet, despite now being about two blocks from that husk of a building. It usually took quite some time to talk at a normal decibel after walking into that place.

Ghoul shrugged, both of them stepping over a large puddle that was the result of rain a few nights ago and still hadn't gone away as it was situated in what could pass as a gaping hole that had most likely caused many old cars their breakdown or demise, "Dunno. I just saw her come in with them out of the rain after I got back from your place, saw her take out two hairs right from the top of her head, tie them up and she went to sleep after telling everyone not to touch them. I think she might be a little depressed or…I don't know; maybe she needs to start popping those pills in her pockets like breath mints again."

Melanie gave him a chastising look, but said nothing. He was probably right about the pill thing. Sure, the dainty blonde was as sympathetic as the next person, but she had long since resigned to the fact that Delia was probably too crazy to even know what depressed was. She wasn't really worth feeling empathy toward, either.


	38. Crows and Moor Hens

I have found a new crevice that has been left unexplored by others upon this section of intellectual wit. Perhaps it will lead to a whole lot of problems, but I will not be deterred! This chapter takes place about, oh, let's say three weeks after Deidre has joined the League so she can be a little more loose—at least in respect to some of the other members allowing her anywhere near anything seen as vaguely important.

* * *

_Don't you run, I'm not done!  
Can't you tell, we've just begun!  
What's your rush—You're not having fun?  
-Reefer Madness._

* * *

**Crows and Moor Hens-:-**

There was a picture of two prostitutes on the wall.

The room—one of the many they had in the Metro Tower for new members or members who needed a place to stay for the night if exhausted—had finally been customized and this was the first chance Warhawk had of Darling Quinn being on a mission, enabling him to use his own access code to take a look inside. Thus far in the days leading up to the child of evil (in his opinion) being afforded a place to call home in the League head quarters, he was the first to enter the room aside from Batman or, on rare occasions, Flash. He would soak it all in until he was alerted that she was on her way back.

He wasn't being paranoid. He was just… If he was to work with the skinny imp, he wanted a feel for what he was getting into.

His green eyes were first met with the—no doubt stolen—painting that was meant to catch the eye of anyone allowed in. Two kind of Parisian brothel girls were the center piece of the painting, one blonde and one redhead, in nothing much but a feather boa, a black corset, black thong and lace gloves for the fiery haired woman looking down a hallway, eyes alert, and the blonde just in a ruffled, white silk teddy, looking out at…something. Both of their eyes were glassy on account of the way the paint was lined into the fabric that made up the surface of the work. Undoubtedly sad, but beautiful, in its way.

Rex wasn't sure if he liked it.

Looking away from the framed art piece, the Halfling glanced about, intent on finding something to think on that revealed some truth into her personality.

In the corner nearest the door, there was a tall, grandiose clock. It was ticking gently, the chimes inside of its guts shining a rusted gold and its wood had a smell and look; as though it had been dragged out of a fire. Most unpleasant. Adjacent to that, screwed into the wall, was a massive book case that was one foot from touching the high ceiling, every inch of it filled to bursting with books made of paper. Some of the books were a little dusty and smelled that way of the perpetually ancient texts Rex could, himself, remember while growing up with his parents. He stepped close to the books, and his eyes soaked in the words along the bindings. Virginia Woolfe—a lot of those—were the books obviously read most, some Dickens, Dickenson, bits on Artemisia Gentileschi, Picasso, Monet, those large, detailed books from university on Grimms Fairy Tales, Hans Christian Anderson, Edgar Alan Poe and the entire workings of the Alice in Wonderland book along with Through the Looking Glass. Bits of color tags decorated many pages of the books.

"Okay, so she _is_intelligent," he grumbled under his breath, "What does she read in her spare time?"

He turned on the balls of his feet toward the bed. It was simple, like all the beds in the Metro Tower, save for the white sheets and thick blanket with what looked like two red hearts sewn into the corner at the bottom and the puffy black pillow left half-askew, nearly falling off the bed when she had been summoned that morning by J'onn to go with Flash somewhere. Some of her long blonde hairs she'd shed the other night in sleep still clung to the sheets as well as the pillow.

But, Rex paid no mind to that (except for maybe the hairs, as he had yet to see under her yarn wig and cap, so those were interesting in a way that he hoped didn't make him seem to be a stalker) and looked at the short table that sat beside the bed. The table could serve to eat off of, study off of, balance things on. He used his to put his helmet atop on the rare occasions he stayed over the night; or hid certain inappropriate magazines within the drawer that came with it.

Quinn used her table to hold a small lamp and a book that she had been reading before going to sleep. He mentally pictured its exact position, before picking it up to look at it. He'd rather not be caught snooping.

His metal gloves caused friction to move over the book cover, sliding over the thin plastic meant to protect the literature from the elements and he held it with both hands, "Girl, Interrupted…. Go figure."

He made to put the book back, but upon further inspection, found that what was marking where Quinn had left off reading—rather than dog ear the thing and ruin the page—was some sort of card.

He opened the book completely, looking over the actual text for a second—{_The meat was bruised, bleeding and imprisoned in a tight wrapping. And, though I had a six-month respite from thinking about it, so was I_.}—before blinking away the passage and picked up the card, large hand pressing the book open to be sure he didn't lose the page and get caught.

Opening the card, he saw that, before it was completely bared before him like some naked animal needed to be studied and kept to himself, that there was something sort of hard bound inside of the cardboard sort of paper; round and with little bumps that he could see but not feel under his gloves.

Open and revealing, Rex saw for a quarter second the words, '_Happy 8th Birthday, to my little princess, my sweetest darling.' _Before sound erupted and he heard a recording spill forth into the atmosphere.

_"For there is no friend like a sister,  
In calm or stormy weather,  
To cheer one on the tedious way,  
To fetch one if one goes astray,  
To lift one if one totters down,  
To strengthen whilst one stands."_

There was something like flutes and bagpipes for the recording's background noise, and the voice that sang was most certainly Gaelic or perhaps British. It was loud and, despite his training and thick skin, he jumped a little and clutched the thing to his chest like he was caught with the murder weapon to a triple homicide. But the door was still shut and he allowed himself a sigh of relief. Not caught yet.

He surveyed the room once more as he put away the card and set back down the book, exactly as they were. There was a bathroom, but there was nothing in it—no face paint, no tweezers, no medical equipment, just a large white towel with a tiny red wash cloth.

Nothing in here was really worth sneaking in for.

So he left the room, looking both ways before stepping into the hall and vanished along the corridors to head for lunch. Perhaps he'd have the special of Hawaiian Sweet Rolls and BBQ meat.

However, back in the room, if he bothered to look around a little more, he would have noticed that the mirror hung above the sink in the bathroom was turned over so the reflective surface didn't show, and underneath the bed was another pillow, as well as an extra blanket. The blankets were damp with sweat and the mirror was a little cracked.


	39. I Am Who I Don't Seem to Be

I have finally crossed another hollow's threshold in an attempt to stave off boredom. Imagine that.

* * *

_There was something wild and uncanny about the place. We could hear the distant howling of wolves.  
-Bram Stoker's Dracula._

* * *

**I Am Who I Don't Seem to Be-:-**

The metal chair under her slight, but meager weight is very uncomfortable, but the short haired blonde says nothing and continues to watch the wide and winding halls. Once in a while another meta or regular super passes by—she saw that white haired Greek warrior and the half-Thanagarian a lot of kids in the foster homes used to look up to, not just five minutes ago—and she is relieved from her worrying for a quarter of a second. But, then, the anxiousness passes again upon and over her, like the rushing of the tide and she glances back at her companion. Who could never look more calm and was—still—smiling.

But, still, at least he could be somewhat more level headed than she when four NSA agents were inside the JLU conference room (how cool would this all be if their freedom didn't depend on this, by the way?) and speaking with Batman about Zeta being given a test to see if he could be peaceful. This was supposed to be a good day, very good, but there was still that modicum of doubt Rosalie Rowan had built up in her in defense of her one true friend.

"Do you suppose everything is going well inside?"

Ro looks back at Zeta, unaware that she had let her mind wander again and gave a stiff, but almost reassuring smile his way, "They've been in there for, like, an hour, so I hope so."

Zeta looked over at Ro, her hands clutched together and wringing with sweat, and blinks his holomorphic light violet eyes at her, insubstantial black wisps of hair swaying before his face, "It's only been fifteen minutes and thirty-seven seconds."

Ro's blue eyes rolled and she found herself really, truthfully smiling at the answer given in typical Zee fashion. His naivety, no matter how exasperating at times—most times—always managed to get her thoughts out of whatever dark hole they had wandered down into.

"Okay, well, their conversation should be winding down soon, then," she grinned, arms moving behind her head to press against the wall, the legs the chair grinding the floor and making an ugly little screech.

The noise within the room before them was quiet, for just a moment, and both of them, human and synthoid, glanced up, straining to hear. Quiet, in situations such as this, often were sort of like the noise before a mortar attack in a war. It could be good, it could be bad. It all really depended on what came next.

The door to the room swished open and both Ro and Zeta blinked at the sight of a slightly more wary and—as far as they had known him while he was chasing them about the country—downtrodden than usual agent West. Like he really, really didn't want to be here, or had been scolded more than usual by agent Bennett for something he had messed up on. Which didn't quite make sense, seeing as it was six in the morning when they had been transported up to the Watchtower—when all the agents had woken up no more than half an hour ago—and there was nothing he could have possibly done to annoy Bennett yet, and why would he _not_want to be in Justice League head-quarters? A goofball redhead like himself probably lived for these sorts of moments.

Hands in his pockets, the twenty-three year old ginger agent didn't so much as give the two fugitives a glance and wandered down the hall and out of sight.

The blonde looked from where West had turned for moment, but her attention was quickly—and quietly, seeing as Zeta lightly set his big hand onto her knee—taken away from that. She looked back over to the door to find the very young Batman (how cool was it that Zeta and him were friends?) and the Martian Manhunter standing in the doorway with agent Bennett stepping out in front of them, his arms folded before his chest.

Bennett cleared his throat, addressing the two fugitives like they were actually under his command—not altogether out of line since he had been after them, asked for their help, and generally had been around them far longer than any other being for over a year—and the two paid close attention to how his mouth was doing something. As though trying to resist the urge to either smile or frown deeply at them, or the heroes behind him.

"It seems that due to some of the attention you've been getting from not only the NSA, but this Justice League," the Martian and Batman ignore his tone on the way he phrased that, "That I am ordered to allow them and a former member of Cadmus to examine Zeta and check if you could, indeed, be peaceful. If their findings are proven and your creator Dr. Selig signs off on it, you are free and clear from the NSA and can get on with your life. Understood?"

Zeta and Ro were allowed a moment to take this in. Zeta was seemingly smiling harder than ever and Ro was looking at Batman with equal fervor.

Zeta came out of this reaction much more quickly than Ro and looked back at Bennett in a way that practically glowed and made the agent so uncomfortable he had to look anywhere but at Zeta, "Do you promise that if they say I am peaceful, you will stop chasing me and Ro?"

"Zeta, if they say you're peaceful and are not in fact under the direct order of terrorists, I'll not only stop chasing you, but I'll apologize on behalf of the entire NSA," the agent replied, truthful and direct, just himself, "Deal?"

"Deal," Ro answered for Zeta, grabbing the synthoid's arm and pulling him up out of the chair.

"If you'll kindly follow us down to the labs," J'onn directed, walking out of the room with the sort of ease that only came from being one of the Big Seven or from living in the Watchtower for long intervals of time, Batman going back into the room to push out agent Rush and Lee, whom were squabbling about everything under the sun about NSA policies and Zeta himself, "Doctor Selig will be here in about an hour. Until then, Red Tornado, Micron, Static and a couple others will ask you some questions and get a feel for some…other things."

As they started down the hall, the agents following behind, Bennett looked over the two women disapprovingly.

"Agent Lee, go and find agent West before he breaks something that might very well disrupt time and space, and if he hasn't found that coffee I asked for, ask for directions. Agent Rush, you come with me. Let's have a talk."

Lee nodded at her former boss, giving him a quiet, private smile in gratitude while Rush had a look cross her face that spoke plainly of how this was not going to be fun, though she still managed to nod in the affirmative without revealing just how glad she was to have Lee out of her hair for a while.

* * *

"A tall double mocha cappuccino, one medium chilled vanilla bean shake, one medium French vanilla and one cherry Pepsi."

Crouching down under the counter of the Watchtower cafeteria's coffee bar—the one thing that was open all day and night, seeing as the Watchtower staff needed something to keep them awake—Alexa bashed her head upwards while trying to reach for the only almond amaretto coffee flavoring left in the tower. Her ginger ponytail cushioned some of the blow, but the person from beyond the counter still flinched at the sound it made through the metal.

Groaning under her breath, Alexa grabbed the flavoring and jolted up above—nearly like the little mermaid making it for above the ocean for the very first time in her life—and found herself looking eye to eye with a young man that she hadn't seen in over a year, a half smile (kinda sad, though she wouldn't think so until he left, maybe) on his face.

"Jay!"

He still smiled, but flinched obviously, looking over his shoulder to make sure someone wasn't around to hear their conversation, "Hey Alexa. How's it going training under Diana?"

Alexa blushed at his to the point question, "Oh, you know. Never a dull moment while working with her as well as Thrax. And, hey, your mom tells me that you joined some government thing a while ago. Why haven't you come up to tell me about that, Mr. Hard to Get?"

The smile on Jay West's face slipped a little at the last question—and at the beginning comment—and he looked over all the bottles along the shelves built into the counters, hands stuffed in his pockets fidgeting a bit, "I joined the NSA two years ago. I haven't been able to come up because of work. Could you get those orders for me, please? None of my colleagues know about…my private life and I'd like to see Barry before one of them wonder where I've gotten lost this time."

Alexa heard the long-suffering tone in his voice and only just managed to hold back a slightly sad look directed towards him. She kept it in check though, she knew the ginger hated pity. She simply smiled once more at him and turned to get his orders, another attempt at conversing working its way through her brain rather similar in its way when she wanted to talk to Thrax after he had a particularly bad day with, say, his father or while training with Barda and Gillotina. A natural thing to do as Alexa was so gentle and caring.

"So, aside from what your mother's told everyone while gossiping with the Arrows and most of the Birds, I don't know much about what's going on with you," her hands reached for the vanilla and ice, the cold and wet from the little shavings clinging to her fingernails, "Static mentioned that aside from you coming up with your boss—some stern guy with a rigid look—you were along with a couple girls. Either of them your girlfriend?"

He is opening his mouth to speak, behind him some other League members walk by without noticing him (but that's okay, he has never been known very well, even if he was born before Barry and had taken his first steps in the training room), with a sudden blush crossing his face, "That—No! We're partners! Or, at least, I was partners with one of them and now I'm partners with the other, but I'm more like friends with Lee…"

Picking up one of the paper coffee carriers and setting the finished vanilla bean within its confines, Alexa started in on the French vanilla, grinning like she had found a bit of treasure under a rock where nobody had bothered to look.

"So, this Lee," she started again, "You're not dating her, but you'd like to."

The way she stated it, in way of a fact rather than a question made to gather understanding, left no way for West to speak again without stuttering. So he tried another tactic.

"So, how's Thrax?"

The flavoring Alexa was using for the next drink nearly slipped from her hand and into the coffee, weighing her hands down and causing two fingers to touch the black, scalding her skin.

* * *

The halls of the Watchtower were long and winding and agent Lee found herself wondering how the members of the League could find their way around such a large expanse of staircases, locked rooms, elevators and everything else that she could not make heads or tails of. If West got lost somewhere, she couldn't very well blame him.

Coming around another hallway corner, she heard a very loud noise and stopped in her tracks to look the other way. Now was about the right time to ask for directions.

Standing in the hall that was attached to the hall Lee stood in, was a really big, bullet proofed window that showcased the inside of the training room/gym. Three heroes that she could recognize clearly from the news were standing before it, watching whatever was going on inside. Aquagirl was at the farthest side of the window, occasionally wincing when Lee could hear something like a scream or a call from past the glass that was followed by a heavy thud, Flash—the newest one, that had to be younger than twenty-five—stood in the dead center of the window, holding a recording device with a wide grin on his face, muttering something and beside him, with his legs crossed like Lee had seen her grandparents do a million times and an observant look, was the youngest Green Lantern that Lee had ever seen.

Gulping back what sort of felt like a bottles worth of spit and with a quick look back the way she came—a little afraid, but with no reason to be—Lee walked gingerly towards the three heroes.

"…There's no way that Warhawk's getting out of this fight. She's already slammed his face into the mat twice," Flash muttered, clicking one of the buttons that helped the recorder zoom in.

"I'd hate to be her if Shayera came back from patrol of Tamaran with Starfire before they're finished," Aquagirl replied, shoulders flinching at another loud sound that was caused by something Lee couldn't quite make out yet.

The Lantern remained silent and as Lee reached out to tap his shoulder, he turned his head to look at the NSA agent, eyes that did not belong to a child scaring her half to death and causing her to jump near out of her skin, "Is there something we can help you with, agent?"

Lee composed herself, despite that young face with perpetually wise eyes looking upon her in his position floating above the floor, like some prophet sent about to look upon a mere mortal such as herself as something other than what it or she, was. She cleared her throat, but it came out less certain than usual, Aquagirl and Flash looking at her now—the scarlet speedster with a lecherous smile and pointing the camera towards her legs.

"I apologize if I'm bothering you," Lee started, flinching as another crash sounded off from within, a large weight hitting the window before the lot of them, and themselves not blinking, "But, I'm looking for one of our NSA agents. Maybe you've seen him?"

She wouldn't have noticed, but ever so slightly, Flash raised the camera towards her face, with his interest being quirked.

"I'm sorry," the little Green Lantern spoke politely, "We've not seen anyone like that this morning. What does he look like?"

"He's a redhead, a little taller than me, possibly confused and lost," she rounded off, like she was looking for a puppy rather than her former partner and still friend, "His name is agent Jay West."

In a blink—or whatever less than that would qualify in the time space and visionary occupation—Flash had clicked off the camera, foisted it into Merina's hands and rambled off to Lee some words that she could hear but not exactly understand. He was also grinning like a madmen and it caused her to nearly wrench her hand away when he took it and started….speaking?

"Well-gee-if-you're-having trouble finding him-_I'llgolookforhim_—right now!"

Lee almost fell over when he let go and vanished from her line of version; a gentle breeze fluttering her hair.

* * *

West walked past Kon and Red Arrow, waving with his pinky at aunt Lian and one of the men of steel, ignored the looks he got from Barda as he passed her on the teleportation deck and ducked behind another corner that led onto the bridge to lead him back to his boss and Zeta. It was a nice time chatting with Alexa, but he could only embarrass a girl so much a day when just making her blush so easily got tiring real quick. Now he was back to be a little more somber.

Or, at least he was, until something that weighed ten pounds less than he and ran like Hermes collided into him from behind and he had to bend his knees to keep from crashing forward and spilling the drinks he'd gotten all over himself.

His brother found out he was here. That didn't ruin his day any more _at all_.

"Hey, Boss," Barry gushed, squeezing his older brother's waist with as much might as someone who could only lift two-hundred pounds could do, the elder ginger looking over his shoulder with that same sour look he always had on his face around anyone in their family since they'd not been there for his graduation into the NSA. For which everyone still felt spectacularly guilty for.

The nickname didn't help much and Jay held up his weird cardboard drink carrier in one hand to brush Barry off with the other.

"Hello, little brother," Jay sighed, pushing against Barry's face so the little monster wasn't digging his chin into his chest or shoulder or any other upper body part he wished to become attached to in an effort to prolong this asinine physical contact for as long as possible. By God, the speedster was clingy when they saw each other…

"Why didn't you tell me you were here? When did you get up? Did you say hi to mom, yet? OMG, I missed you!"

"Get off of me!" The older ginger finally snarled, pushing his palm against Barry's forehead and pushing as hard as he could, "If my boss walks by, there's no way I'll be able to explain why a member of the Justice League is hugging me! Unless, of course, you came out of the closet, finally?"

The tone was said with just enough inflection of black-mail that Barry backed up a scintilla of a foot, with his eyes—or, at least the whites of his mask—going wide, along with his mouth. It made Jay grin in satisfaction and reposition his jacket, all ruffled up from where Barry glomped him like an over-excited koala.

"That's gross, Boss," Barry muttered, "You promised you wouldn't say anything about…my exuality-say."

"Don't talk in Pig Latin, it makes you sound desperate. So, you haven't come out yet?"

"…We're not talking about me," the young speedster spoke despairingly, changing the subject back onto his brother, Barry's hands fidgeting to try and hug the other man, "I missed you, Boss. You never call me. Too busy chasing robots that you can't be bothered to pick up the phone? What's up with that?"

Jay sighed, licking his lips for a second before coming up with an answer, "I'm not busy chasing robots anymore, apparently. He's up here with his "little lady" because your new Batman spoke up for him and dragged us all up here to put him through a battery of tests. The little victory I had hoped for in catching him just got snuffed out, so forgive me if I didn't call before coming up here. Besides,"

At this point, Jay made to resume walking the halls to get to the other agents, Barry walking beside him with a look of a kicked puppy, "You guys haven't called me, either."

"We tried," Barry whined, his hand going up to rest on Jay's shoulder, but, thinking better of it, let it drop to the wobbly tray Jay was carrying and plucked two of the coffees away to relieve some of the weight, "Your office wouldn't give us a number."

Jay didn't have anything to say to that. However, he did tell Barry to stop before he took a drink of Bennett's coffee.


	40. Absence Makes the Heart…

I am on a massive strain of writer's block, so I have no idea if this chapter was any good whatsoever. Do forgive me if this is utter garbage. Please don't judge too harshly, though. After all, this fic is rated high for a reason. I just got around to writing something to live up to the warning. Writer's Block is unkind…

* * *

_-:-  
I masturbate to photos of us when we were happy.  
-Post Secret._

* * *

**Absence Makes the Heart…-:-**

This is not a good idea. Some little part of his brain that still knew morality was repeating this over and over and over again, but J-Man was actually rather good at tuning that part out with thoughts of whatever he wanted. What he wanted now, what he wanted before something in his life went wrong, what he wanted much later in life.

For the moment, in the dead quiet hall—everyone either asleep or gone out to terrorize Gotham—he focused on what he wanted to know. What he was watching was something that he dearly loved, as it made him hard as a rock and unbelievably fulfilled on good nights and absolutely miserable on bad ones.

The door to their shared room was not exactly open, but then, it wasn't closed, either. On account of various times when they'd just kicked it open, the frame of the door was all wrong and if one stood on their knees—kinda like when women got down to pleasure their partner before going around the world on a bed or another surface that she could get hers on—and put a hand to the wall to lean in carefully, they could easily see inside. Or, they could see the bed and whatever was on it.

Right now, his lady was on it. She had bypassed any meetings tonight and he had not been in an hour ago. Taking into account that she had lit up some Lemongrass and Ylang Ylang incense, he could calculate by how powerful the smell that she had been alone in there for a good twenty minutes.

He leaned in further and found a better line of inspection. He could feel his own teeth grinding, but that was not all about jealousy. It was more so that he didn't let out a long winded moan at what he observed. The last person that did that almost got blown away by the bazooka Delia kept under the bed for more practical reasons.

That purple colored jacket that Delia wore all the time was tossed across the room and clinging for its existence upon the door to their bathroom, its green floral corsage with that week's chemical concoction was practically weeping down the coat's frame with the silk handkerchief she kept in the breast pocket showing off some vaguely fresh drops of blood. He boots were inhabiting the area beneath her bed, laces askew.

The only thing left of her wardrobe were the shorts—ugly acid green like the corsage—clinging to her ankles (and making him want to go in and take them all the way off) and her equally acidic green tank top she wore under her jacket—hiked up and showing off her breasts; the drawstrings were lightly touching those perfect nipples of hers.

He ground his teeth even harder at the very and deathly quiet sounds she was making, but stayed his place. J-man kept his sights on the object of her attention.

No, he was not talking about her right hand—the one busy working on the Lower Deck, nails raking in what must have been a painful way for normal women against that particular bundle of nerves that were twice (or more in her case) as sensitive as his whole Mini Me—but her left hand. Her left hand was clutching for dear life onto a photo, wrinkled from previous self pleasures. It was old, kinda; at least two years old and she was looking at it and getting more excited than any of his sessions with her.

Perhaps, if he waited until she was done, he could sneak in and actually see what was on the damn thing for once. It could only help him.

After about five more minutes of her groaning and her hips moving like waves along the bedspread, she made that familiar, silent, WASP moan and gripped the picture so tightly that it curved and wrinkled to conform to her thumb. J-Man almost lost it right there and burst in to have some of his own fun, but he bit into the skin of his lip and drew blood, instead.

Thirty seconds later, she panted and slid the picture onto the nightstand, gracefully taking off her clothes to walk into the bathroom, a sweaty imprint of her body left on the sheets of the bed that were similar to the ink blot pictures used to psychiatrists to get an insight on their patients. This particular blot resembled—to him—a buffalo skull and a cluster of star constellations.

After he heard the water in the shower turn on full blasts and the tell-tale sounds of her humming some billion year old music he had never heard until he started banging her, he silently went into the room, heading straight for the picture on the nightstand.

It was on its front and when he flipped it over, he wasn't quite sure whether or not he should be disgusted.

The picture was sepia and red—one of those specialized photos that you could get at one of those booths at the carnival when you dressed up as a cowboy or madam or Noir film star—and staring back at him were all of Delia's old crew mates.

And when he said old, he meant it was before the Joker rose from the grave to instill chaos one more time. They were in a bar setting, J-Man supposed, Bonk behind the counter and dressed all gentile, cleaning pint glasses. Chucko was at the far end, in raggedy clothes, tossing darts at a really old board—a picture of the old Batman in the center of it—with a vodka bottle in one hand. There was a piano in the forefront of the picture and Ghoul and Woof were dressed up like waiters; Ghoul was playing the piano and Woof was holding up a tray of shot glasses.

But, what J-Man paid the most attention to was on the piano. There, sitting together, was both Delia and Deidre. They were dressed up as saloon girls—feather in their hair, garters, over the top frilly dresses—and they were laughing. Not at anything, but with each other. Delia's thumb nail had made a dent just where her face was. That was not exactly who she was looking at, but it kinda was right next to the obvious person of interest.

The young man put the picture back and left. He knew she was sick, but he didn't know just how sick.

Crazy cakes. This would take a while to get used to thinking about.


	41. Que Sera, Sera

Mmm, time to try something going way forward rather than staying in one place for too long like some kind of locust. Let us go forward a few months in time to when tragedy and hope are served up front like …coffee. Which is what I need so early in the morning.

* * *

_The Chief Archer's Daughter is accomplished, beautiful and brave. She is desired by the villains, but she's not interested in them.  
-Cirque Du Soleil._

* * *

**Que Sera, Sera-:-**

There is a military feeling rushing through the air like lightning in spring. It's beautiful in its own special way, but one also knows that it kills if someone can't get away fast enough.

The head of the Falcones and Delia are talking inside of Delia's room and Ghoul can't find Woof anywhere. Joker's Daughter ordered everyone to stay in the ballroom of the Blue Rose hotel, and that included Senior Falcone's lieutenants and in turn, Chucko was there as well, much more well adjusted to these situations in the last few weeks. One would think that he was born into the mob, unlike Woof.

Ghoul felt like this was similar to when his parents used to host parties that he had to go to, but wasn't actually supposed to speak at. Just wear his finest clothes and eat the food—caviar, beluga, the menu generally showcased nothing but the stuff the Russian business partners were accustomed to—in a dark corner. He used to snatch away some champagne from the waitresses.

But, in this time, in this hour, he simply stayed on his short, strangely very clean sofa, wearing his most terrifying costumes and makeup with his computer and his pumpkin. Three Falcone henchmen had tried to take a seat with him, but thought better and kept near the entrance, no doubt ready to bolt back up to the president's suite if their boss started screaming or—most prevalent among the victims of that green haired harpy viper—laughing in a death cry. Rather smart on their part, as Ghoul was anxious, and likely to snap. He would not blame Woof for not being with him, the splicer didn't like the Falcones and Ghoul wouldn't press him too hard. Not even to tell his best friend just why he didn't like the mob family.

Outside, there was a long rumble—like the crack of a jet wing running the sky—of thunder and Ghoul looked back to his computer screen. In place of the schematics of building designs that he had pin pointed for another heist Chucko had told him to look into, there was the image of a red letter with what seemed to be little black and white spots designed along the corners. The spots reminded him of hyenas and he was careful not to tense up.

This was the forth electric message in two weeks. The last one had been a simply worded favor for a virus that he was to make sure could get into the office computers of a train station terminal. He did as it asked, put it on a memory key and left in a paper bag beneath a park bench when he went to visit Mel's work and offer up his company. When he returned to the hideout they'd been in the week before (an abandoned hand blown glass warehouse that Delia had spent the entire time sulking in after Batman had gotten out of her latest trap with…added help), he turned on the TV to find the news showing thirteen rather muscled business men—if that's even what they were, seeing as the tallest businessman he could remember as a kid only leveled to five-five and these ones were six feet each, if not more—being perp walked in front of a train station that had various weapons strewn out everywhere and the reporters spouting off on the police getting there as soon as they had received a call from Batman. The reporters also displayed in the corner of the screen a picture of the flying rodent in shadow speaking with his "Mysterious New Partner" that was involved in the bringing down of a Kasnian racket that was a part of the train thing. Ghoul had turned off the TV and returned to his room to find a small paper note tacked to the outside of his window. It was a check for some money and letter saying '_Thanks Carter, don't spend this all in one place and burn the evidence._'

He did just that and nobody noticed except Woof, whom nodded at him after Ghoul got him a triple meat pizza from his favorite restaurant.

Ghoul propped his head atop one palm and glanced loosely back and forth. He counted a couple Jokerz near the fridge talking about what they thought the boss was doing—probably in an attempt to goad on the Falcone men—and Chucko was chatting it up with Senior Falcone's right hand about some random bullshit Ghoul didn't bother to tune in to. He simply looked back at the electric letter and clicked his mouse over it.

The text was simple and gave him a god blessed reason to leave.

'_Meet me at the Tik Tok in twenty minutes. If anyone asks, you won't be lying when you say you were bored and wanted to visit Melanie._'

He deleted the message and, for a show if anyone was looking, shut his laptop and gave as much of a lecherous smile directed at the ceiling as he could.

"What are you so happy about?"

Dot. Of course she would be looking. The woman was smart enough to avoid him, but that didn't stop her from eying him like he was a street walking whore (not that he was against whores; everyone had to make a living somehow and—considering Dot herself had gotten paid a few times by men twice her age for services he didn't invest time in trying to figure out—he chose not to linger on that) and butting into his business whenever she felt like it.

He walked for the door, laptop still in his arms as he went for his long coat hanging on the rack, glancing back with his lithe swan's neck to put on the still going act of being somewhat lascivious, "I got a date."

* * *

It is raining heavily upon the chaotic bitch territory that Gotham assumed itself to be. He walked from street corner to street corner, clutching his leather computer carrier in his hand like it would keep him anchored should the rain rise into flooding and try and sweep him away with no care for his existence, his coat already heavily saturated with water and making it harder for him to keep balance as he walked a downhill street that lead directly to the Tik Tok. That little diner restaurant surrounded by hulking, monolithic buildings. Ugly things that he hated for dwarfing the pleasant little Tik Tok; bullies around a small child made of expensive irons, glass and metals compared to its simple aluminum and wood to preserve a sense of old ways.

He sort of slid the rest of the way down the hill and hoped the slight step along the street that inclined into the Tik Tok, the awning over the door covering him like an umbrella offered by a friend.

To be polite, as Melanie often told him to be before coming to her place of employment and possibly embarrass her, he swiped at the water lining his coat, drops and splashes falling off and onto the already sopping floor mat that he also took the moment to wipe his feet on, with dark oil and mud coating the mat. For the hope of getting in good with Melanie, he already took off his makeup on the way over, a rag inside his leather bag lined with his camouflage that he was actually getting a little annoyed at wearing anyway, but had to if he wanted to avoid getting grilled by Delia.

More water reached the floor and as he looked up, he found his favorite pair of blue, old fashioned and beautiful eyes look across from the counter of the bar to him. Her arms are crossed and she's looking like a picture from one of the old albums Ghoul remembered as a kid. All tall and proper and expecting him but looking like she was thinking on something else and not at all looking at him like she appeared to be.

He smiled anyway, and made his way to her.

"Hey, gorgeous," he greeted, meeting her with a kiss that she returned half-heartedly, eyes still open and looking not at him, but near through him, "How's it…"

She took his bag out of his hand and hid it behind the counter like she often did when he stayed the graveyard shift with her so she wouldn't be hit on or fondled by any drunk that came about when she worked late, and she dragged him out the back door. They had to pass the kitchen to get to the stairs that led up to the roof—a common place that all the workers went up to so they could smoke—and Ghoul felt his stomach drop out of him.

"We have visitors," she started, extremely quiet and inhospitable to any words trying to form out of him, her tiny hands holding his as they made it to the door at the top of the stairs and stopped, her other hand reaching for it, but not turning the tiny, harmless knob. Not yet, not for the second she could help.

Ghoul swallowed nothingness and rested his hand on top of her own on the door knob as his other found her shoulder and squeezed, "Bad ones? Did one of the other Jokerz-?"

"No, no," she interrupted, looking at him, really looking, but looking out the glossy, difficult to see through window, she returned to a slightly odd tone that didn't fit with any emotion he put her up to, "It's just that…It's a friend and…um, someone we don't like but…respect?"

Ghoul blinked and made to reply, before the feeling of the door knob moving under their hands and then out of them. The door opened all the way and both blondes were a little troubled at there being no one actually there, and the door making an eerie sound; a sort of squeaking, creepy as all sin noise that only mice being cut up in a blender could make.

Cautiously, with Ghoul stepping out first to be sure there would be no attack, they made their way out onto the roof; the ground littered with used cigarettes, cardboard coffee cups crushed flat underfoot and dead or still living insects that festered the place and occasionally got inside to try and cultivate in the food before getting the boot (both literally and figuratively).

There was nobody upon the roof, but with a tilt of his head upwards, to the high rise of the roof that was like an arrow pointing up to the sky before becoming flat and perfect for the criminal—or not so criminal—to run on, Ghoul found who Melanie spoke of. It made him both soar spiritually and become rigid as stone.

Batman was standing tall and mischievous in form, one arm gripping a pole that stuck out of the building and had a satellite nailed to it for the TV used for betting downstairs. If it weren't for the fact that he was so terrifying, he would nearly remind Ghoul of a little kid on the playground, completely within his element and at ease.

But, beside the Dark Knight—white, red and black to the Bat's simple black and red—was his friend. She looked different, a little, like when he saw her last, but with less of her faux courage and showing midsection and more white leather jacket and a look of utter shame. She was smaller than the last time he'd seen her, really.

He wasn't sure how he should feel about her still wearing the wig and cap.

Batman spoke up first, still hanging off of the pole and so different from the little lady beside him, sitting cross legged on the roof, "Mr. Ghoul, it's good to see that you answer when called. We have something for you."

Ghoul didn't look at him, but did answer, accent thick with something that was not quite emotion so much as a mild reaction to shock, "And what would that be, Bats?"

Batman nudged Ghoul's old friend lightly with his foot, tapping her side and Ghoul was taken by just how thin she looked when her arms disentangled from being folded in her lap. She had something in her hands—small and sort of cylindrical—that made glass and metal clinking noises.

Silently and together, the two young vigilantes jumped from the roof and landed a few feet before the two blondes. If Ghoul were a more poetic person, he might have compared the sight of the both of them to the white moon and the night sky descending, or even Yin and Yang in human form, but he wasn't so he put it out of his head.

Deidre still wouldn't look them in the eyes, but she held out what she and Batman had brought.

Perhaps not as hesitantly as he should—given the situation—Ghoul held out his hand and was granted full view and possession of the objects made for a gift. One was a computer memory key, new and sleek with a white leather strap that was undoubtedly for him as nobody else that Deidre may still have considered a friend gave much of a damn about computers, but the other object looked like a vial filled with some kind of green liquid that glowed under the light of a street lamp around the corner, the end of the glass capped with a plastic top lined with a little rubber center that would be perfect for a needle.

"Well," Batman coughed, lightly taking Melanie by the shoulder and leading her back into the stairwell, "We'll leave you two to talk for a minute."

Ghoul made to tell the other to get his hand off of his girlfriend—a knee-jerk reaction despite himself knowing he may get a punch in the face for his trouble—but his small, blonde lady looked back over his shoulder and looked pointedly at Ghoul and then Deidre. She'd be fine.

When they were gone and out of sight, Ghoul looked back and Deidre, finding that she still wasn't looking so much at him as his shirt, his hands, a point just beyond his shoulder.

This was awkward.

There was a long moment of silence, before Deidre finally looked at him and brought her hands behind her back, clearing her throat, "So…uh, how's been?"

Involuntary spasms came to his hands and jaws and a frown settled his facial features.

"You've been with Batman all this time, so I assume you already know how we've been doing," his tone came harsh despite all the times he had been practicing for this in his head, resolved not to be mean if she ever talked to him again, thus causing her to flinch a little and take a step back, "And, anyway, shouldn't I be asking you that?"

She hung her head, "You could, but I don't think the answer would go over too well."

"Where have you been?"

"Around. Nowhere really specific. I've been visiting family."

"You told me that your only family was here. Were you lying about that, too?"

She shook her head, not exactly exasperated, but not having a good time, either, "They're not related by blood and I didn't lie. You never actually asked me if I wanted to leave or change jobs."

"And if I had? Would you still have done something so reckless for someone you didn't even know a ways back? Would you have taken us with you? Dee Dee—"

"Darling."

The interruption takes him a little off guard and he looks at her like she had spoken in Greek, "What?"

She shifted her weight to the side, looking sheepish, "Everyone calls me Darling Quinn now. Or just Darling, depending on whom trusts me like I'm an actual human being. It may take a while until that grows to more than just a handful of people, though."

Ghoul sighed, rubbing the middle of his forehead, the two gifts in his hands touching and making those little clinking sounds again and drawing his attention to a less guilt-adding conversation. He didn't want to be angry or make her feel worse about herself around him. He missed her and wanted her to know that, but it was hard to get to the truth of that when he looked at her and saw how much—or how little, truthfully—she had changed.

"What are these, exactly…Darling?"

She blinked and looked just south of shocked that he had actually used her new name, its sound coming off very differently from the way everyone else said it. It wasn't bad, just…strange.

She found her voice soon enough, but he did catch her light blush under all the white makeup she wore (so like she used to, but left unmarred by those hideous fake freckles and the choker collar around her neck), "Well, the computer thing is for you. It's the information to a credit account as payment for those favors I got from you. I know that it's not much, but it's all I have."

"This is your money?" He asked, raising the key before his face, incredulous and torn. Damn, he hadn't felt that in connection to money since he ditched his family in favor of adventure.

She nodded, going on about the small vial, a small smile gracing her lips, "And that there is medicine for Woof."

"Medicine?"

"So he can talk."

Okay, that really got his attention, "That's not possible."

She shifted to her other leg, "Yes it is. I have better resources for these sorts of things now. It won't turn him human, but at least he'll be able to have a conversation without feeling bad and…you know, have phone sex with Jack if he wants."

The way she started to falter near the end of that explanation, followed by her twiddling her fingers and blushing even more under her face paint was enough to make Ghoul bark out a heartfelt laugh, slipping the vial into his zipper clad coat pocket so he wouldn't lose it and rest his other hand on Deidre's shoulder. She jumped a little at the contact and he lost some of the pure humor in his demeanor—she looked like he had slammed a Louisville Slugger into her, she winced so hard—but maintained a real smile. One that didn't scare the crap out of small children.

"It's good to see that you're still basically the same person. Even if you do work for a pointy eared rodent now."

The door to the roof opened a scintilla and Ghoul jumped at the affronted Dark Knight's voice, yelling, "I heard that!"

Both the former and current street Rogues shook their heads at the door.

This was a little better.


	42. Merry Go 'Round and 'Round

I have forced myself to look into the void that has surrounded Delia up until this point and have found inspiration.

* * *

_-:-  
So when you watch Star Wars, which side do you root for?  
-House, MD._

* * *

**Merry Go 'Round and 'Round-:-**

Delia remembers when she and her sister were really young—nearly tall enough to see over the counter in Nanna's kitchen, but still small enough to walk around naked through the back yard and not get yelled at because they were children and could really get away with it—that she would ask Nanna questions about Grandpa and she would be somewhat willing to answer. Deidre never asked, she didn't see the point, but Delia asked as often as she could get away with it before Nanna changed the subject and refused to answer even days later.

She asked little things that at the time didn't mean anything more than getting to know a dead person, but later on, she would look back on it and connect the dots to her heritage and just why the old crone that took care of the twins never spoke of the man.

The elder twin remembers, clearly as a morning on the beach with no winds and no clouds and nothing bad, asking Nanna once if Grandpa was a genius and if that was why she fell in love with him.

Nanna had said yes quietly and with a look in her eyes that even as Delia grew up she still couldn't place under any specific title. It wasn't anger—Nanna's skin near her eyes didn't wave like desert sand—and it wasn't grief—Harley's mouth didn't go lax and her throat didn't constrict and tighten near her jaw—and it wasn't love—her eyes were clear and there was no shy smile—and so Delia didn't know.

Unfortunately, even as Delia inherited this genius, she still didn't get it.

Genius comes with a price.

Maybe that was why Delia never could get a straight answer on whether Harley still loved their grandfather or not.

* * *

Delia is manic depressive.

Ghoul shouldn't be so surprised by this, after all she had started to present with the symptoms even before Deidre left, but as it were, he really wished that there were more effective ways to help her that didn't just revolve around avoiding her until the mania had passed and she presented a new plan before her entourage. But, there wasn't anything they could do.

The others didn't know, of course, they thought she was simply a female version of the chalk white devil they all worshipped; but even if they did know, it wouldn't matter.

Nobody could slip her the drugs that would help with the symptoms—not through needle, not through pills.

So, all they could do was wait it out until she finished these…episodes…

The Blue Rose hotel was completely empty, save for Ghoul sitting upon his and Woof's favorite sofa, generally at ease despite the fact that if he were truly sane he would have walked out with everyone else hours ago, and Woof sitting contentedly upon the kitchen counter, fingers tapping on the marble that was bleached two hours ago and just sort of watching the events of the day unfold like a story told by just one actress across the room like a stage at the opera. So very _Madame Butterfly_ and _Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolfe _at the same time, but without blood and guts and entrails decorating everything.

So far.

Ghoul's computers had been left at Melanie's and he was content to just do as Woof was doing and watch.

Every single week, and like clock-work, Delia had a manic episode where she ordered everyone but Ghoul and Woof to get the hell away from the premises for the next twenty-four hours or suffer her infinite wrath. She didn't want anyone to see her do what she did in these hours (this being the only reason that nobody really noticed her condition), not even the gaunt scarecrow looking young man or the walking upright hyena with a brain, but she had no choice but to get them to stick around and make sure she didn't…jump out of a window or slit her wrists like she had almost done a couple of times. She needed a keeper during this time. She didn't want one—or two, as the case may be—but she acknowledged in her giddy, deranged way that she liked living and needed someone to guard her so she didn't stop living.

Ghoul crossed one leg over the top of the coffee table languidly, sort of like a Daddy Long Leg repositioning on a web to get comfortable for the wait on a landing fly, and yawned. The place was sparkling clean and smelled of bleach and various other cleaning products whose names he couldn't fully pronounce. The floor no longer had the residual dead bodies of roaches or wood beetles and Ghoul could eat off of the wooden boards if he so desired. He should feel something other than annoyance, but just couldn't. He was bordering on the thought of whether he should leave the hotel to get them dinner or not and found another yawn coming up the back of his throat.

Woof, for his part, couldn't bring himself to move to somewhere more comfortable than the rock solid counter top. It was just too fascinating, this scene set out before them. He had contemplated on various occasions on if he should record these goings on sometimes, but he always declines the thought and goes through the motions—though, in his case, with a tad more curiosity than Ghoul allowed himself to feel. Woof was naturally inquisitive and Ghoul was too jaded in these things to care.

Ghoul was just happy that Delia was wearing clothes today, this time, this episode.

True, they are only a slightly torn black bra and panties that belonged in some porno mags, but they are at least enough to cover her more important areas and—should Melanie pop in, as she was prone to do to check up on him—not get Ghoul or Woof in trouble with "keeping an eye on her".

Today, they were somewhat interested in what Delia would do. When she actually wore clothes during mania, the day didn't usually end with her crying her eyes out or trying to down a case of bourbon to see if she could. It ended with something beautiful, if not a little twisted.

Yesterday, in preparation—like she was some high priced architect in Metropolis rather than the crime queen of Gotham—she had made J-Man's crew rob a home supply store and foisted what was needed onto a list to be checked by Chucko. As far as Ghoul knew, they had gotten everything that was needed because she had enough sex with J-Man to make him pass out and proceeded to do various things that she, once upon a time when Ghoul just tolerated her and didn't hate so much, would never have done with Chucko in the basement. Disgusting.

-But he digressed.

Woof hesitantly moved one hand into the sink right next to him and pulled out two glass bottles of the old fashioned Root Beer that they still sold in those little Mom'n'Pop stores on various corners of Gotham. He set one next to him and tossed the other at Ghoul before Delia noticed. Not that she could, but he liked to play it safe.

While his body made the motions, Woof's eyes never left the images of tiny allegorical paintings Delia was making with her perfectly chalk white hands and their death grip on the paintbrushes made of badger fur and horse hair—the expensive kind.

It was sort of a cosmic joke, in Woof's opinion, that while lucid (well, as lucid as Joker's Daughter could get) all Delia could make were things thought ugly and terrifying—bands of parties revealed to be adulterers and liars while falling apart came to mind—but while in this short bout of mania that only lasted twenty-four hours every week, she managed to make something beautiful that even the other Jokerz could enjoy…and be only quietly disturbed by.

Today, starting at seven in the morning like she always did, she had banished the rest of the Jokerz for the entire day—warning not to come back until tomorrow evening if they wanted to stay intact—and gotten to work cleaning every nook and cranny of the hotel. Top to bottom, everything that was recyclable had been taken to a crate out back to be hidden away for when she was too tired to think up a plan but still needed money, the rest of the disgusting rotted out food and trash thrown away in tidy black plastic in the dumpster out front, and then everything was bleached. She had been raving about hospitals and institutions and white rooms.

There were no white rooms in the Blue Rose, until today.

She then proceeded to discard her usual ensemble of jacket, short shorts and boots down to the bare bits of breast and underside protection and got out one of those giant paint rollers.

It took her four hours, but she had managed to coat every wall in the living room and kitchen and a few bedrooms a white that wasn't quite like her skin, but more like the color of little Chinese dolls or baby teeth. If there were drops of the paint on her for that, neither Woof nor Ghoul could tell at all.

Woof blinked his eyes—glazed over like glass during the winter and a little gross—but immediately opened them again and focused like the predator he looked like on what Delia was doing with the four paint brushes held precariously in her hands, using two at a time with both hands like some psychotic little machine with a superbly warped processing system trying to get as much information put onto the walls as possible before she died.

She had already painted the wall above the sink. It was now sporting this beautiful and freaking scary portrait that was sepia and dark green in color that seemed to seep up and out through the cracks in all the walls and had settled to appear before all this image of… There were words that he could read, at the very top—_Quiet Decadence_—hovering like spectral shapes above what looked to Woof like a very old splicer, covered from head to toe in sickly green scales like a crocodile, wearing only ratted out pants that clung to his legs like another skin. He was sitting Indian style before this gorgeously clothed, tiny, knee high dwarf. She was blonde and in what could be described—if Woof's memory served him right—as Victorian dress wear. She was holding the…splicer's…face with her tiny, gloved hands and looking at him like he was some kind of God.

It was sad and beautiful and Woof wanted to cry when he looked at it. Ghoul didn't say anything, but that was because the only real art he could appreciate had to hang in an actual gallery (curse his family for drilling it into him that real art had to be approved of by "the right people") and had to come from Melanie when she wanted something new to hang in her apartment.

Delia muttered something quietly under her breath and scratched her head with the end of the smallest badger hair paint brush.

"…and in the corner of the Dreamland, beside a quiet fire that was more like a white hot mirror image of a snow storm outside of a reflective window, the Crow and the Hatter engaged in discussions of ravens, pens and written word, the Hatter pouring out another cup of tea for the both of them…"

The phrases didn't belong to Delia, they belonged to Deidre and Woof so wanted to slap her for so much as attempting to utter those beautiful stories the younger twin had told them whenever she could—the last and real thing her grandmother had ever left her. But, he couldn't.

So he watched her continue on what she focused on painting across the wall nearest the large living room window in gloriously ugly colors that he'd sooner gouge his eyes out than ever apply himself if he ever found himself renting, leasing or moving into an apartment.

She hadn't put up a title yet, but it wasn't necessary. He remembered the story of the Crow and the Hatter and, all things considered, the illustrations were close to doing the tale justice. Or, at least the end of the story.

The colors used were primarily reds and browns and grays, but there were illusive others. Two figures were starting to emerge from Delia's brushes, one very much human, with sad eyes, hands that seemed to shake with the effort to lift his giant tea cup, wearing a top hat with a half-price tag tucked into it and gazing steadfast and with a half smile at the other; a tall, ominous figure standing before the vapid beginning outlines of a fireplace, half his face hidden in shadows and the other half showing that he could smile at the other man but not with the world. The standing man terrified Woof, the way Delia painted him would scare a child—hell, it would scare J-Man and Chucko—in peeing themselves, but he liked the look of the sitting man.

Delia dropped to her knees so hard that Woof jumped a little from his place on the counter and winced at the thought that the girl's knees would surely bleed later from the impact on the floorboards. She focused intently on the lines of the tea pot sitting on the rickety forming table beside the Hatter with her right hand and toned further in on the lining of the Crow's facial outlook with her left.

Ghoul got up and started to stretch out the cramps from his back that the sofa always caused. And then he walked back into the kitchen with Woof and started rummaging in the fridge for something vaguely edible.

Half a day to go and they both could go to see their Walkers…


	43. Cat Without a Grin

Yay! I'm finally using Barry again and this time I get to answer the question of both his and Deidre's love life! Huzzah to me! Granted, this may turn into a huge train wreck, but it won't be the first time.

* * *

_-:-  
Baby, you spin me around.  
The Earth is moving, but I can't feel the ground.  
-Britney Spears._

* * *

**Cat Without a Grin-:-**

"Why don't you have a boyfriend?"

Had Deidre been less schooled in the art of sneaking up on people, she would have jumped out of her skin, taken the toothbrush out of her mouth and jabbed the unexpected guest that had gotten into her room in the Metrotower in the ribs. As it were and as the voice now hovering behind her was seen as friendly and not at all one to take part in the reward for her posted on the internet, she simply settled for rolling her eyes and turning back to her doorway, still working her toothbrush over her teeth. How great was it to get a toothpaste that catered to all oral needs?

The Flash was in his full gear, save for his hood mask, which he had allowed to be taken from his face and hung now off of the back of his neck, big green eyes and red hair set free to be seen, and would probably have sent lesser women into blushing or giggling like pre-pubescent Catholic school girls. It was a safe bet that nobody would barge in that didn't belong and see his secret identity as it was Deidre's room only two weeks into her living there and everyone was still a little afraid that if they knocked on the door and woke her up that they'd get shot in the face with a pellet gun or something equally improbable.

Finishing up this round of cavity prevention, Deidre spat into the sink and put away her tooth brush, moving past Barry and over to her bookcase, "I don't know Barry, why don't you have one?"

Still a little angry at her finding out his sexuality when nobody else had—who just _knows_that someone is gay/bisexual in just four meetings when nobody else but his family knew?—Barry had to struggle to maintain a straight face. It didn't matter that she was bent over looking for a specific book and practically ignoring him, he knew that she'd notice if his face changed. It was one of those scary things that all women did.

"I'm serious," he ground out, teeth clenched in a smile, "Why do you always avoid these questions? I mean, you confide in Batman!"

"That's different," she responds flippantly, moving _Lord of the Flies_ from its perch, but then changes her mind and slips it back in between the original _Bambi_ and _Desperate Housewives First Season Guide_, "He asks me casually and I know that if I don't answer, he'll go snooping around until he finds the answer. I like you Barry, but you kind of have…a problem with secrecy."

The words fly out his mouth and he doesn't bother to stop them.

"That is so not true! I have a secret identity for God's sake! I've been in the closet since I figured out I'm gay-slash-bisexual! I know the code to Rex's porno chest—you never heard me say that—and you think I don't know how to keep a secret?"

She finally pulls _The Painted Veil_from the bottom of the shelf and sits quietly onto her bed, barely making it move with her pathetic mass atop it. She looks at him again, observant and with those midwinter eyes boring into him like Kal-El's x-ray vision, and he shuts up anything else he might have said, tiny chills running up his back.

Damn, if he was straight, he might be inclined to jump her, albeit with the knowledge she would gut him, and make sweet night music. That said, he only heated up a degree or two, rather than, say, ten, when she crossed one leg over the other and grumbled a little, getting comfortable on the bed and taking off her terrycloth robe to reveal her short shorts pajama bottoms—black like half of everything she wore—and a large green T-shirt that was four sizes too big for her and made her look like a five year old trying out daddy's wardrobe.

But, he would not budge. He wanted answers. Answers to very juvenile questions, but still!

"Please? I really want to know more about you."

Bringing her legs over the bed's side and getting more comfortable, her lips twitch against her will and move into a half smile, eyelids lowering just enough to make her look less like a role in Fatal Attraction and more like Lolita aged five more years.

"And what would you trade?"

Oh, so she wanted to play it like that, did she?

Jumping up onto the bed, bouncing up and falling down and repeating over and over again—god, this bed was huge compared to her—Barry's hair moved with him and he didn't even notice the smile that mirrored hers.

"You show me yours and I'll show you mine."

"You first."

He considers—very quickly, he's a speedster after all—and answers with this quiet, soft note in the back of his vocal chords that she not repeat this to anyone. Ever. Or, at least until he came out.

"I had one a while back. We still have a sort of communication, but we broke it off because he was out of the closet and I wasn't and I wasn't ready. I thought he should be with someone a little braver, and who wouldn't spoil his life."

"Who's this guy that would turn down a turbo charged redhead?"

He lands completely upon the sheets—that smell like her sunshine, her opium, her—and waggles a finger in front of her.

"Ah, ah, I showed you mine, now it's your turn."

"What was the question again?"

"Boyfriend: Why you not have one?" He asked, grinning even more ridiculously as he used the language that Don, Dove, Hall would classify as Neanderthal. Her eyes narrowed on him, but she sighed and set her book onto the bedspread so she wouldn't lose her place. Barry actually managed to get a look at the page that featured an illustration of a pig's head sitting on a pike before a very thin, sickly looking kid and he had to look at her face to keep from becoming nauseous. How could someone read that before sleeping?

"I tried to date a couple of times. The first time, the guy I was interested in confessed over dinner that he was actually seeing someone else—who Terry actually dated a couple of times—and the second guy…came out to me before we even had dinner. He's now dating my first dates' girlfriend's brother. Ain't that just fantastic?"

Biting his tongue and not blinking, Barry opened his mouth to make her specify as to just why she wasn't dating now—despite probably already knowing—but she continued, her pointer fingers and thumbs connecting to do battle with her embarrassment.

"I'm not dating now, not so much because I don't want to, as because I'm afraid of something worse happening. What if the next guy I date ends up being a pedophile or—worse—one of my Nanna's friends' children? Dangerous and sort of incestuous? What if he's only attracted to my feet and wants to polish my toes and then make me put on really high heels? What if he's had sex with my sister?"

As her voice became even higher in pitch and a sort of panicked look came to her, Barry found himself on instinct, bringing his hands together and making a really loud clap. Like a flyswatter hitting someone's back as hard as possible.

She shut up and her perception cleared enough for her to look at him, hands no longer twiddling but now grasping each other and going white.

Jay often chastised Barry for rushed into things without thinking. Barry often called Jay a hypocrite. But, in the end, it often worked out anyway, so why change tactics now?

The tall, well built, if not a little wiry ginger stooped over on his knees in front of Deidre and locked his right pinky with hers.

"Let's make a deal. If you start dating again, and find a guy who seems normal, I promise that I will come out of the closet. That way you don't have to be too worried if he's crazy, because I will check him out for you."

She chewed on her bottom lip, "…Can we bring B-Man in on this? I don't think either of us can be objective."

"….Deal."


	44. A Confessional

Um, I'd just like to make something clear: The two Drake children are not technically OC's. Thomas I took from one of the future set JLU/Batman comics and made more appropriate for this fic and Mark is a gender swapped Nightstar. They are Tim's kids, because I couldn't find any other future based comics saying whether or not he had kids, and I already gave Hal to Dick and Kori. Please don't mock me too badly.

This takes place directly after the events of Tim doing the interview up in the Watchtower.

* * *

_-:-  
The men have game and the women have attitude.  
-She's the Man._

* * *

**A Confessional-:-**

"Where have you been?"

Shaking his head and flexing his muscles to make sure he was still, indeed, in one piece after being transported back into his home by the up-dated version of the teleporter on Star Trek—God bless Captain Kirk if he was ever a real person in the multi-verse; one would need balls of steel to manage to take that way around the galaxy without projectile vomiting like Tim always felt like he should do after shifting from one place to another, molecules breaking him down in a blink—Tim turned away from looking into his kitchen when previously he had been looking at J'onn as he pressed a button on a monitor, and found his wife sitting on the couch. She was looking at a book, folded in between her legs with the title _Delta of Venus_peaking over her knees, but the aged man knew that Stephanie was not actually reading the words.

And she was mad.

One wouldn't be able to tell if they didn't know her, but the way her eyes were cold, her tone repressed and too calm for his taste and her shoulders set like stone were all tell-tale warnings—National Geographic would love to film her, like some endangered tiger—that, should he say the wrong thing, he would suffer. Perhaps not anything life threatening, but more than likely very unpleasant. Like being stuck on the couch or sleeping on the garage roof to avoid her voice getting to that high pitched frequency that caused dogs to bark when she got haughty and murderous.

Tim scratched the back of his head and absently looked about to see if his kids were around to back him up. Though, it was unlikely at best; they knew better to inflict her wrath.

"They're in the garage working on the car," Stephanie said, closing the book with a little thud and languidly lifted it from her person to put in on the coffee table set before the couch.

Tim should have known they'd abandon him to the wolf at the door.

"Hi, honey," he finally responded, taking a slow pace into the kitchen so he didn't have to look her directly in the eye. Even after years of marriage to the gorgeous, blonde haired woman he'd known forever, he still lacked some social skills that made it possible to say the truth in something that he had done that, to others, seemed heinous or just plain wrong and when he spoke about them—cold, scientific or like he was a school boy stuck in a locker room full of boys twice his size or with Kon—seemed even worse. If he was going to have This Conversation with Stephanie—and it would come, no doubt running into him like a freight train—he was going to occupy his hands with making something that may alleviate some of her destined anger. Maybe he could make a three course dinner while they talked/hashed this out/argued?

And like a puma rounding on some unsuspecting baby mountain goat, Stephanie followed after her husband. One of her hands was resting on her hip (the one with the Chinese characters for 'fish' forever scarred into her skin for her twenty-fifth birthday by Cassandra and Rose when they were all totally smashed) and the other rested on the arch of the doorway, elbow against the frame and fingers fiddling with a lock of her blonde hair that still lacked that much grey, with only a few exceptions at her temples that she plucked out every morning like they were demons from hell. He often thought that this pose she took when she was mad at him was dead sexy, but only in hind-sight. In the here and now, it was damn terrifying (like a little, younger version of Betty Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?).

"The boys were being very helpful today," she started off as he opened the fridge and took out some meat that could be thawed in the hour if he put it in the sink and put the water on hot, the plastic sticking to his hands, "They helped me with the laundry, the gardening, the shopping. Thomas kept looking at his watch, though. I wondered why and then I realized when I called Dick about dinner next week, Hal didn't answer the phone."

She paused as he clacked open the cupboards, grabbing dishes and bowls—the large glass ones for casserole and huge slabs of steak—and was not looking at her.

"Hal always answers the phone," Stephanie went on, all pleasantness gone in favor of that no-nonsense tone that would make Bruce proud, "Which makes me wonder where he was. He didn't work today, and I called his cell and got nothing but the message service. Where were you two?"

The answer he gave should not have been what came to mind and what was first to come out of his mouth; he was supposed to side-step it and try and buy time to really work out a defensive maneuver—should she throw something at him—but he couldn't help it. He wanted it out of him before it became something dark and dirty instead of what it was. Why should this be so bad, when he'd resolved that it wasn't?

"I went up to the Watchtower to interview a new recruit—at least part of the time—for the League."

Humor—if there was any to begin with—left the blonde's face and there was cold rimmed steel in her eyes. She knew, fine, he could…outwait the onslaught of whatever was to come.

He started on the servings of the cheese and such for the casserole when she finally started in, quiet and serious and—if he was truthful with himself—worried for him. So like herself when she was Spoiler or Batgirl.

"You talked to Joker's brat?"

"Stephanie…"

"No!" She snapped, fists slamming onto the kitchen island and sending all the objects settled there a trembling and echoing glass and metal like rain on the roof, "They hurt you and you're letting their offspring into your life! Into our lives, no doubt to cause nothing more than, probably, pain and suffering. How could you, Tim, after what they did to you—What he did to you!"

The 'they' she spoke of was Joker and Harley, or the Jokerz gang Joker's electronic sought out—it was sometimes hard to tell when Stephanie got so worked up—and the 'he' was, as always, Joker himself or the little chip in his neck.

He set down the food and, gently, gently, put his hands on her shoulders.

"It's okay…It will be alright."

"Hah," she sniffled, leaning into him, "When have I heard that before?"

"Well, I said it when Thomas was born in the tub and you delivered Mark in that 'Horse' position…"

"And since?"

Silence was just as much of a bitch as gravity sometimes.


	45. Running 'Round Leaving Scars

This up-date was done in contribution to a slash exchange between myself and _Rose Midnight Moonlight Black_. True it's a chapter and not the one-shot that I'm actually putting out for her to enjoy, but it was made through inspiration of the challenge and discussions we've been having about slash pairings. Now I finally have a reason to write for this pair again. This chapter is linked to **Que Sera, Sera**—or, rather, the aftermath.

PS: I didn't put much thought into what Woof should sound like, but for some reason the voice of Quasimodo with a smoking habit and a touch of Russian came to mind. If that makes any sense, but, I promise this will lead up to something!

* * *

_-:-  
She lit incense in sconces all around the room and played a tape of Tibetan monks chanting.  
-The Rose and the Beast: Charm._

* * *

**Running 'Round Leaving Scars-:-**

_There is this very vague and vivid and horrible dream he sometimes has when staying over at Jack's. It's always nearly the same, but with different colors on occasion._

_Everyone that matters in the Gotham underworld are in this really big warehouse with the moon hovering over it and pouring beams of light in through broken glass and pieces of the roof with everyone waking up from off of the floor—there is the hazy memory of smoke and Woof can taste it in his mouth still, like smog or that gross stuff used by dentists—to see that where the Dark Knight was hanging by his ankles on a thick chain, was empty._

_Delia had big wide eyes that looked even worse in her new outfit, and she was yelling at random people—not J-Man though, he was too busy clutching at his hand that looked swollen—asking what the hell had happened. Where was Batman? How did this happen? Why are you smiling, Inque?_

_Woof couldn't hear what was being said by the sleek corporate saboteur, or Blight that had stepped up beside her, grinning as much as his skeletal frame allowed—holding up a small flashlight—because he was busy trying to see where Ghoul was. The scarecrow like teen was across the room where the splicer had last seen him, only he was getting up off of his knees, one palm pressing to the hollow of his eye. But he was alive, what did Woof have to worry about?_

_Everything after that part of the dream tends to fly by with details of people lining up in two rows, a sort of neon blue light and Delia's little sister having this terrified look when her hands turn red—though, sometimes this is where the dream turns and they're blue or green or multicolored—and she flies past everyone else to nearly stop in the door where Woof's standing._

_When the dream gets to this part—the end, the end, thank God—Woof wakes up from his sleeping spot by Jack, his back to the other's and warm, safe. He always cries out in anguish, though he has not been hurt and stuffs one of his clawed hands in his mouth to try and erase the memory of blood, sunshine and opium and his shame…_

* * *

The feeling of his vocal chords regaining some of their strength is unpleasant at best, and that's before Woof has even said a word. The first word he tried to pronounce properly comes out warbled and scratchy—not at all like his old voice—and he gives this pitiful whine that hurts him more than the word does, because his throat is suddenly on fire. So much so that he bolts for the toilet in the back of Jack's apartment—past Jack and his worried expression he's only ever given for his sister and before he made friends, past Melanie sitting with the syringe that previously held the curative running through Woof's veins, past Ghoul sitting upon the kitchen counter with the instructions Batman (of all people) and Deidre had left him (she was alive, she was alive, thank God, thank God)—and vomits every last bit of his breakfast (bacon, eggs, fruit and sweetened coffee) into the clean porcelain like it's all poison he needs to get out or he'll die.

A soft hand—one he has grown used to holding during sleep and during sex and generally just to feel safe—is placed quietly on his shoulder, and Woof feels very embarrassed as he yawps up all the perfectly good food Jack had gone through the trouble to make for them that morning. Jack doesn't make any comment on it, but he simply waits until Woof spits out the last of the bitter taste in his mouth and presses on the handle on the toilet; the contents disappearing into a whirlpool and oblivion.

"Feel better?"

"…Y…Yeah…"

Jack doesn't exactly tense up like Woof thought he might should the time ever come that he could actually answer someone without pantomime, but he isn't saying anything either.

Woof turns around and, despite himself, blushes at the massively attractive and cunning smile that Jack presents before him, eyes half lidded and his front teeth showing in a way that would make the Big Bad Wolf look like a social worker rather than a pedophile (depending on how you interpreted the stories).

"Do that again," he asks, leaning down to butt his forehead gently against the other, their noses touches like they always did when they were going to kiss.

The light touch is a comfort unsurpassed and Woof finds his arms circling the other's shoulders, claws messaging in between black hair that is so soft that the splicer sometimes can get highly aroused just by doing this for five minutes before he jumped the other man. Now was not the time, but if all went well, then maybe later; after the taller man's sister and Woof's best friend left, of course.

"Yeah," Woof starts, noticing that the fire had dimmed and tried for something longer than one syllable, his voice bringing up a bit of his accent he had tried to hide in his past life, "How was that? How was that…Jack?"

This time, Jack does kiss him (totally hardcore, totally French and lord only knew what kept the hyena from jumping the other with just willpower and being able to hear Ghoul and Melanie in the kitchen) and Woof has to clutch the sink to keep them both from falling backward.

A cough from beyond the door—closed, thank god—interrupts Jack from running his hands up and down Woof's furry chest—lacking his shirt and jacket on account of Melanie needing to find a vein—and the elder Walker groans, disentangling his arms from the splicer.

Jack opens the door with a grin back at Woof, and they find Ghoul leaning on the door's frame and Melanie next to him, holding a recording device that was live and had its little light blinking just beside where the lens was.

"He said his first words!" Jack chirped, bringing Woof out into the hall to introduce him to the camera, Melanie lightly (sort of like the Teeny Bopper she was supposed to be, should she have been a little normal) bounced and the balls of her feet.

"Come on Woof, smile for the camera and say…something!"

The smile seeped a little off of his face, but the glowing blush of embarrassment stayed tried and true as he responded with flipping off the camera and saying, quite clearly, "Something."

Melanie then did the unthinkable thing among the Walker family. She devolved into those noises and shrieks kept among mothers that had bared witness as their child stands up and walks for the first time; accompanied by Ghoul quickly taking the camera from the small blonde before she dropped it (smiling himself, but more like that practiced smirk that made him look like a lech to keep people from knowing he was actually happy) so she could lightly move Jack out of the way and squeeze the living hell out of the splicer.

"It's not like I'm your baby, Mel," Woof wheezed out, trying to pry her off, "Stop freaking out—I can't breathe!"

"Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry," Melanie responded, still giddy, but slackening her arms to let him inhale, trying in the back of her mind to put a country to the accent he was presenting (maybe Russian?), "I'm just…So, so happy for you, Woof!"

"Thanks."

* * *

…_And sometimes, when he is woken with more of his dream to chew on in the day, in the light, there is always the memory of blood and shame, but even deeper still, there is a singular moment of hope. Just one and Woof clings to it like Jack on bad nights, or Melanie when she needs help reaching something off of a shelf or Ghoul when they slept in back alleys or dry sewers…_

_There is that singular moment of time that he remembers that it wasn't so bad, because his teeth didn't slow his friend down and she got away._


	46. Witches Boils, Witches Familiars

This came in the middle of the night when I was unable to sleep, so forgive me for writing and simply publishing. If it's crappy, I didn't notice at…two in the morning. Oy vey…

* * *

"_The strength of a family, like the strength of an army, is in its loyalty to each other."_

_- Mario Puzo_

* * *

**Witches Boils, Witches Familiars-:-**

The entire place looks sort of like how Faust told her the cities carved and paved by the Romans probably looked when the plague was big and in like the tide. Nobody has cleaned since the little locusts moved in and the bright eyed witch finds herself crinkling her nose in disgust as she hides behind the curtain that has been ripped near in half from the short one—what is it the others called her…Dot—having sex against it.

A person passes by, some massive clown with one cone hat and a half eaten sandwich sticking half out of his jaw as he moves away from the kitchen to talk to a dark skinned man with green hair sitting on the sofa playing cards with the fat man—Chucko, she thinks he's called—that never takes off his mask. When none of them are looking and her eyes find the closest reflective surface available, she dissolves like summer air when it gets trapped in a freezer and her image is just barely visible within the frame of a shattered mirror that had a sucker punch administered to it when two of the other clowns got into a drunken brawl.

Being here at all makes her really wish that she wasn't so inclined to do anything her friend, the goddess, asks her to do these days, but then, she can't very well say no. She was too polite in her ghostly life, now that she had no need to steal money or food.

Death was boring, even after haunting Luthor for the first five months after being brought back to earth—even if she really wasn't all there—and this was mostly just something to pass the time.

Her purple hair could be seen for a split second before she found a reflective surface leading into the Governor's Suit, into the pieces of broken glass bottles strewn over the floor looking up at everything in every position imaginable. It was better than a tour through any museum; although, far less extravagant. All the walls had freshly painted pictures of familiar faces seen through a warped, manic depressive mind. And the twin she was to observe had sex in this room a lot, so one could only imagine how she could get off on the visage of Gorilla Grodd looking down at her from his place on the ceiling with…well, she supposed it must have been her as seen through the mind of Harley's stories to the girls…a tad more beautiful and dangerous looking than she had ever been in life, clinging to the horrible ape while she lightly pressed away and he pulled her into himself. An awful thing to have sex around; really, really, horrible.

But, not nearly as awful as Luthor standing by the window in an Armani suit—black, black, black with a bloody red tie; just the way he was before and after they met—glancing over his shoulder with dead eyes and Mercy on the other side of the window, in her business woman's suit, sad eyes looking at Lex and very nicely painted bruises along her neck and cheek. The title of that picture was _The Prince and His Companion_. Harley really hadn't skipped out on any of them, the ghost in the glass shards guessed.

It seems that whenever the woman comes to this room, Delia is either having lots of sex or is gone. This place is not for sleeping—if the girl sleeps at all, the manic bitch—and if anyone came in without permission there were no consequences as long as they stayed off of the bed.

Sighing, despite not taking a single breathe since she scattered in energy beams across the galaxy because of one man, the violet haired woman awaited the shadow that always came when she mentally called out—and there it was, passing over her like a black winged angel—and felt herself become swept up by another witch, even though this one's energy was much, much more potent and powerful.

She had enough information, for now.

* * *

_Many months ago, equally making her sad that she had lost one of her few human friends she'd ever had, and happy that she and the witch she had snatched up from space so long ago now had a pair of nieces (this joy being cut short after more received information), the goddess that had been on parole for the upper number of fifty years received news from Justice that Harley Quinn had been forced out of the world. Not passed away like the goddess had hoped, but made to leave by other means, like the witch had said she would be when asked so long ago._

_Justice had actually pitied her when she'd cried for the first time since leaving Tartarus for freedom._

_"Circe, I'm sorry about your loss, but if it helps, she chose to stay on Earth for a little while longer. Unfinished business, you know."_

_The goddess who had gotten Batman to actually sing in front of a crowd of people had still cried, but only for three days. After that, she went nosing around for Harley._

_Three months, and she couldn't find the ghost of that gorgeous blonde. Not a trace at all._

_A month after, however, she did receive news from Tala—how wonderful was it to have a witch in your dept who had a few tricks?—after she had come back from checking over Keystone, that Harley had left behind a legacy. One was in the wind, but according to what Tala found out from spying on Crane, quite beautiful, polite and kind. The other needed to be checked out before she made contact…_

* * *

"Well?" Circe asked the woman in the palm of her hand, encased in a powder mirror she kept to carry her around, her own blue eyes looking into much lighter colored ones.

She probably looked odd and out of place, sitting at one of the outdoor tables of the little French restaurant that had just opened near Broadway, but Circe doubted it. Sure, she had purple hair and was talking to her mirror, but the waiters wouldn't think anything of it. She was wearing an Armani leather jacket and Ralph Lauren jeans and boots and had paid for expensive Rose Salad that cost forty dollars, so for all they knew, she was just some would-be actress rehearsing for a part. She had come a long way from singing in the Amp Theater and wearing her Greek battle armor, that was for sure and certain.

Tala shrugged, looking with sad eyes at the witch goddess that she had—reluctantly—become friends with. And she shrugged from the distance of travel from Gotham to New York City, but neither said anything.

"I wouldn't go in there unless you like the smell of stale sex and can sidestep the rats in the kitchen."

Circe groaned and placed her hands against her eyes. As a result, in the restaurant's kitchen, a chef screamed as one of the brown eggs set to be cracked hatched into a chick and the pepper shaker started dropping red ants into a batch of soup.

Not the best beginning to the day.


	47. Ghosts in the Attic

This chapter is dedicated especially to **Rose Midnight Moonlight Black**, because, quite frankly, nobody else would so fully embrace characters that, within the realm of their _own_ show that they _actually_ live in, are nothing more than ciphers akin to Bambi's father in the Disney movie.

* * *

_-:-  
_"There is no refuge from memory and remorse in this world. The spirits of our foolish deeds haunt us, with or without repentance."  
- Gilbert Parker

* * *

**Ghosts in the Attic-:-**

There is a mop and a wheeled bucket cart standing against the wall, content looking as the entire place now smells like Lemon Pledge instead of rotting paper and old ink; the floor spotless but still a little damp with the yellow fold-out sign that had a stick figure and cross-out stamp raised in the red paint set out before anyone that opened the door, '**Caution: Wet Floor'**so cute and polite.

On a stool before one of the shelves that contain ancient evidence from times long gone, there is a tiny little music player jacked up to the ultimate volume that is—despite the device's small size—managing to drown out the sounds from one floor down of the MCU bull pen. As well as the sounds of the entire booking department full of Jokerz they had picked up in Falcone territory during a drug bust on the mobsters way earlier that morning.

"…_And I asked Henry, my bartending friend, why it is that there are those kind of men…"_

The voice of the young secretary Bullock was looking for snapped him back into his senses—her singing along to the music that was prehistoric was strange, but recognizable—and the old fashioned cop that had dragged himself up the stairs to the storage room of files and other such things that he recalled his mom and dad talking about when he was much younger moved from hovering in the doorway and into the barrage of shelving and file cabinets; the cigarette behind his ear was begging to be smoked and he hoped that the blonde was near a window.

Everything was neat now, all organized and totally alien from what it had been just a couple months ago before Barbara had hired the skittish little thing to clean up after everyone else and follow them around offering up food and drink.

"…_Do you want to be a polyester bride_?" And there she was near a very much open window, moving back and forth from a shelf of paper leaning like a tower of flypaper, dusting debris away from one piece of paper and then moving back to a filing cabinet to insert the page into its new home. The bun she kept her hair in was a little undone, leaving a few bits and strings of hair leaking out before her eyes and dusting her shoulders—a perfect, tiny little maid.

"Larkin," he said, prompt and to the point and just lightly reigning in a smile that may as well look like a sneer as the petite teen jumped a little off of the floor and almost crashed her knee into a spinning chair nearby with more files—some of which he could just make out the names of Kyle, Selina; Isley, Pamela; Dent, Harvey—that would have sent them into a heap on the ground.

Weeks and months in the department and she still got spooked by loud noises; Bullock could only imagine where Gordon had pulled her out from, or why. She who was a sort of legacy to the department and had brought back this terrified little thing that she claimed was a friend of her family. Bullock wouldn't blame the Commissioner, though; after all, the last four secretaries never stayed beyond thirty days and two had left crying.

Straightening herself, Deidre looked back upon the tall detective with all the boldness of a mouse before a hawk and cleared her throat, "Oh, detective Bullock! Hi, I, uh, didn't hear you…sorry. Was the music too loud? I can turn it down if you'd like."

Taking to the window and removing the cigarette from his person to light it up—oh, how he had been waiting to take a drag all day—Bullock took a puff before replying, "No Larkin, it's alright. I was actually looking for a bit of help finding something here. Commissioner said to ask you."

Perking a little at the mention of her help, the dainty blonde straightened out—as best she could, there was still the lightest quiver in her body as the detective looked especially menacing with a lit cigarette—and brought her arms to cross over her chest.

"Of course I'll help as best I can," she replied, her little slip of her accent slipping with nerves, but nothing he noticed as he was busy being sure all the smoke slithered out of the window and didn't set off the fire alarm he just knew was in the archives that highly sensitive, "What are you in the market for? Old Rogues, gang affiliates, Mafioso? You name it, we've got it all here."

Taking another drag and holding it back, the brunette supplied what he thought he and the rest of the MCU were looking for, "We're looking for addresses and any information available on some guy called Bennett that ran rough shot over some old warehouses back in the day. When Jim Gordon was in charge some, eh, forty, fifty years ago?"

If Bullock had been paying attention, he would have caught the mild grin that came to the other's face, but sadly, it was not to be. He missed it as she practically skipped from where she had been standing (like a perky, elfish squirrel) and trotted farther into the black hole of paperwork and unattended evidence from the former generation of men and women of law enforcement. Had he not tossed his white stick out onto the fire escape—never let it be said that his mother hadn't taught him manners—he would have lost her as she shimmied up one of those ladders that he remembered in public libraries and such, with the top latched to some rail upon the shelves heads that moved back and forth in a glide.

He followed from the ground as she pushed off and, after a few moments, stopped, climbing all the way to the top of one shelf that wasn't quite cleaned off yet—though she would not be judged by him about the cleaning, they hadn't been able to get the janitorial service of the department to touch the place in years; it was a miracle it was even half as good at present—and he redirected his eyes elsewhere. She was wearing that form fitting black business dress—the kind to be associated with lawyers and rich bitches at parties—and if he got caught looking at her…underthings…he'd get hung by a thick twine of rope by Gordon. Not something he wanted to endure as he was already getting yelled at by Duquesne every other day about gawking at a sixteen year old "blonde Lolita personification".

"Ah-hah!"

Still ignoring the urge to look up—he would not be a pervert, he would not look up, no—he responded by looking at the shelf across from him with words written on boxes like 'Incident with Scarecrow; 32 in Hospital' or 'The Russians and Italians' that had some of their lids open and what looking disturbingly like mouse bites along the edges.

"Were you guys looking for information on _**Boxy**_Bennett? The gangster who also had his hands in a lot—and I mean a lot, a lot—of underground clubs and raves and drug industries? Who also had a brief and somewhat, according to most of the files I've read, disastrous relationship with The Joker and Harley Quinn and maybe, kinda that thing with the tank and your dad and Batman and…Veronica Vreeland?"

Okay, maybe now he could understand why Babs hired the chicky. She read through all of that already?

"I—yes?"

She smiled delicately and, with one hand on the shelf rail and the other hand—plus arm—full of two boxes, hopped down right in front of the detective, the bun of her hair flopping adorably with the excessive amount of emotion.

After he got over his shock at how she managed not to fall on her ass, the detective took the boxes from the girl. Both with somewhat dusty but he didn't get to focus on that as she started towards the archive's door, toward her little radio and the wheeley mop set, chattering about what was in the boxes.

"Okay then; I just gave all of the listings for his old hang-outs, old connections, the numbers and addresses for all of the people he sought council with, all of the names of his alleged enemies and rivals, the names of any family members—though I think that was a very mute list—and some of the names of detectives, marshals and WITSEC people that can lend you help if you need to contact the people who were mostly responsible for finally sending him to prison about, eh, thirty years ago. Some of the people are actually still alive, so I put their numbers and such in the top box—the one with the black top and the smiley sticker; don't mix them up—and the other box is mostly just for the in case so Babs and detectives Duquesne and Sanchez don't get mad at you for skimping out on more information."

As they reached the door to the archives—still open and catching up the sounds of the downstairs and the bull pen—Deidre took a deep breath and finally stopped talking, motioning for him to wait a moment as she turned off her radio and put it into a locked cabinet near the mop trolley, still smiling, but loosely.

Blinking, the much, much taller human being finally spoke up, "Uh, thank you. I think that's the most you've ever said around me."

She paused as she followed him down the stairs, flicking off the light switch and locking the door behind the both of them, her red jacket she took off for the cleaning hanging across her arm, "Really? Huh. I guess I must be getting used to you then."

"Used to me?" Bullock asked, slowing a little as his gait was a bit faster than hers and he didn't want her to trip and go crashing—like last week and the week before that—down the stairs and cut her knees or something else again. Babs and Alcana would fuss over her forever and, though he could appreciate their reactions (the girl was so damn small) it annoyed the other detectives and himself tremendously. He would start trying to be nicer to her, and part of that was making conversation, no matter how pointless, and keeping equal pace. His mom always preached to at least attempt being polite to lesser department organisms.

"Uh," she started, crossing her arms over her chest again—almost like hugging herself—and not looking at him as they stepped from staircase to staircase, "Not that you need getting used to, or anything like that. You're a very nice person, I'm sure, very nice…It's just Babs talked a lot about your dad and you and he…you're both kinda scary. No offense."

It was so wrong that his ego seemed to grow with that statement, "None taken. It's part of the job…being scary. I wouldn't get many right convictions if I were nice."

She made a sound in acquiesce and they remained silent until they got to the bull pen.

When they both got to the noisy place for the MCU detectives, they both paused in the doorway to find Alcana whining at his desk at something Duquesne had said, Duquesne yelling at him and waving her empty coffee cup in front of her like some threatening baton and Sanchez ignoring them both as he was occupied with yelling—yes, even the handsome, sweet, jolly giant yelled during the job—at who they could all assume was some other department's asshole Lieutenant for the third time since the bust on the Jokerz that morning about holding and over-stock and "you motherfucking bastards better get off of your atrophied piece of", etc.

Coughing into her hand, Deidre unfolded her jacket and put in on, asking Bullock very plainly, "Well, I'm off to get some nourishment for you guys, anything specific you want, sir?"

Bullock tuned out the insult Duquesne was using on Alcana and replied just as plainly, "Just that piping hot blend coffee at Starbucks, a twelve inch all beef sub and, uh, hang on."

Breathing in and breathing out, Bullock yelled at the top of his lungs into the fray, "WHAT DO YOU THREE WANT FOR LUNCH? LARKIN'S GOING FOR PICK-UP!"

Silence reigned for all of twenty seconds—save for in the blonde's ears that were ringing, the shaking of her entire figure re-starting like she was a bunny standing too close to a wood chipper—followed swiftly and assuredly by the three answering in the pecking order; Duquesne, then Sanchez, then Alcana.

"Vanilla bean iced and a triple burger with fries."

"Cherry cola, onion rings and a deep fried turkey salad sandwich."

"Double caffeine shot blend, fried chicken and you can surprise me with desert, beautiful."

Deidre nodded, rolling her eyes and bid a pleasant wait to Bullock. As she vanished down the ungodly long row of stairs that led to the back door of the station house, the eldest of the MCU detectives flinched quite visibly as he set the given information from the blonde atop his desk and Duquesne proceeded to push Alcana's desk forward, resulting in the surprised ginger being pinned helplessly to the wall until the lady cop thought he suffered enough.

Deciding the ginger didn't deserve his help yet, Bullock opened up the black topped box with the smiley face, secretly glad that everything was neatly filed and there were no traces of a family of rodents having ever taken up residency in the cardboard.


	48. Equilibrium

….I am seriously hating myself at the moment. I keep adding characters from other dimensions and time spaces without a clue what to do with them. This week's guest character is, to my own surprise, Johnny Quick as modeled in _Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths_. Only, in this, he gets to be the exact age as Barry and at the same school. An antagonist for the public to celebrate…goody. On the bright side, I finally worked up the courage to revisit Scarecrow again.

* * *

_-:-  
I believe there's a fitting analogy for our situation involving a river of excrement without a means of propulsion…  
-Big Bang Theory._

* * *

**Equilibrium-:-**

"…and as a result of this, it was lead to be believed by many an '_Alice_' expert that the young heroine is the author's personal love interest in Alice Liddell, whose family, as we all know, denied his request for marriage."

Friday afternoon, lunch soon to be participated in by all of the student body, had most of the students in Jonathan Crane's class anxious to leave. They were listening, of course; none were near stupid enough after the first week with him to be caught daydreaming in the middle of a lecture. If they did so much as attempt to nod off, he had a nasty habit of taking his directing stick—sort of like a maestro in the theater—and thwacking it hard against one of the empty seats up front before calling their name and having them answer a rather difficult question.

The redhead in the almost very back row would never be caught doing any such thing. Barry West, for his bit, enjoyed Professor Crane's class. He actually knew what he was talking about—bunking with the Mad Hatter in Arkham was plenty ammunition to prove that—and had this habit of drawing someone into what he was talking about. Whether it be about the Queen of Hearts and her link to post-partum depression or the illusive Cheshire Cat who, in the books, was the only one with complete control over its own non-existence. Barry would always pay attention here, even with his stomach growling like a rabid dog.

The snap of wood sounded next to him, no doubt from some unfortunate pencil, and Barry frowned inwardly to himself. He would always pay attention to the aged man; he only wished the same could be said for others.

Eyes and not head moving to look at the seat and person nearest him—one of the only others that took the back seats—Barry had to stifle a groan.

Beside him and sharpening both ends of the pencil he had snapped like a wishbone, with his brown eyes a little too focused on the shredding of wood and lead and mouth eternally set into a smug sneer at the Professor's voice, was Johnny Quick. Barry still wasn't quite sure if that was the redhead Aussie's real name, but he never felt up to asking. The guy was too much of a jerk—even compared to most villains the new Flash had fought—to bother with asking such a question.

Johnny was as unpleasant to Barry as he was charismatic to the female population of the school; no matter how many of them he chewed up and spit out after finishing with them. The ginger couldn't understand why that was as he had never done anything even remotely worth the deserts of ridicule from the other—in fact, Barry had been reasonably attracted to the young man when he had first started attending then class—and still was a little too nice as a result, even if these days he could barely stand the guy.

"Mr. Quick," the back-straightening voice of their teacher called from up front, thwacking his stick against a front seat, "Maybe you can answer the question?"

It came out as a suggestion, but Barry knew it was an order and couldn't help the light cringe from his own figure as Johnny rolled his eyes and responded, accent thick and rich with something like sarcasm, and something like boredom.

"I could try, of course."

Professor Crane kept his face straight, but most of the students in the front could feel a chill in the way he was looking at the younger man. Like a crow deciding if it should pluck the eyes out of a carcass on the side of the road.

"Refresh the class memory; why is the Cheshire Cat perhaps more important than even Alice in the books?"

"Because the others can die," Johnny started up, pausing a second to fish for the rest, "No, they _will_die, and are terrified. The cat pops in and out of Wonderland, though, so he could very well exist one place without dying and escape to the other if he wanted to continue living…or something."

"You're half-right," Crane answered, seeming pleased that he might have been wrong in the assumption that the young man still had one ear in the lecture, "But you're missing the important part that most critics seemed to point out. Mr. West, what do you remember?"

Barry, quietly and silently and in the very fore corner of his mind, thanked every saint in heaven that a) he paid more attention in class lately and b) Terry and Deidre had been helping him out in the references and preferences and attentions the author had paid to _'Alice'_and everything else. One, admittedly, had helped more than the other, but one was so very good at making sure he remembered and didn't forget, least he get less than a B- in class and get his ginger headed, attractive ass handed to him in training.

Barry cleared his throat and bobbed his head once in Crane's direction, "Um, it was suggested by some that the Cheshire Cat didn't fear Death because it was actually cheating Fate in habitually committing small acts of suicide with every disappearance and then pulling a Lazarus act by coming back into the land of the living. In a way, some said that the Cheshire Cat was actually the closest thing to God in Wonderland. I think…"

"You're both right," Jonathan replied, not smiling, but turning back to the board, bony hand picking up a chalk eraser; the red and white letters and figures disappearing with a swish back and forth, "And as such, I won't make the rest of the class write anything down until after lunch. Enjoy."

Once the words—the very whisper of sound and wind—left him, like magic or a trick, the loud (horrible, eardrum shattering) clang of the lunch bell rang.

All the students got up to leave—those closest to the Professor going the long way to avoid the man's desk—and soon the room was empty, Barry the last one to leave, Johnny just ahead of him.

Turning the corner and heading for the school's front doors—upon which he would hide behind a car and then appear before a fast food joint for seventeen minutes of gorging himself—Barry quietly sang, almost absentminded, a tune that was becoming dredged into his brain as Terry thought it would be funny to get Deidre to sneak into his room he kept at the Metrotower in case he was too exhausted to go home and program both of his alarm clocks to play—on school days, one must keep in mind—at seven in the AM every morning something that most would think him sublimely stupid and other such things that he must definitely was **NOT**…

"…_Creeping like a Communist, It's knocking at our doors. Turning all our children into hooligans and whores. Voraciously devouring the way things are today; Savagely deflowering the good old USA—"_

Before he could stop himself and curse a very irritated, "Dammit!" like he usually would at this point, sometimes followed by physically slapping himself and grumbling about sweet revenge involving Terry's room at home and making his own alarm sing, "_If you're having girl problems, I feel bad for you son. I got ninety-nine problems, but a bitch ain't one…"_ in a subtle reference to the problems the damn Bat was having with his cute Asian girlfriend, a rough hand, much larger than his own, slapped the back of his head, cutting him off at the "_Reefer Madness_" that was to finish his spiel before cursing. He almost balked all the way forward and went face first into his locker, numbers still needing to be put in so he could hide his books and be off to eat.

"What the hell was that, ya little fairy?"

'_Oh…'_Barry sighed internally, putting away his books before turning around to greet Quick with a jittered, but friendly half-smile.

"I'm sorry, Johnny, what did I do now?"

If the man was going to punch him for showing him up in class, fine. It had happened before, but Barry hoped that the other would get it over with so he could speed off and get lunch before he passed out.

"The fuck was that in class?" Johnny snarled, annoyed that the ginger was trying, so very obviously, to move around him and escape, which was not happening; he brought up his hand and gripped his wrist hard, "I got that answer. What is your problem?"

Barry opened his mouth to answer, quite simply, that he had no problem, he was just answering the question, he did not want to anger Crane, there was no malice intended, blah, blah, blah, but…

His stomach interceded with a growl given only by most gas model trucks used to crush tiny cars in southern television shows. Quick actually let go of him like he had discovered the shorter ginger had some alien in his belly that was going to pop out and eat him.

Barry blushed and started marching down the halls, hoping the stairs leading to the doors three at a time. When Quick realized what had happened, he followed, simply using the rail as a slide, "Hey, you didn't answer me, you sodding git!"

"I wasn't showing you up, you jerk!" Barry answered without thinking, one hand over his stomach as it was now growling a lot more, "Professor Crane's just scary, and I wanted to go to lunch and I really didn't want to get in a fight over it—let it go!"

A little shocked, as this was the first time in over a year that Barry had raised his voice, Johnny let go of thoughts of a fight and settled for following after the other.

"Do you have a car?"

That got Barry to stop, just shy of the parking lot, wherein he would have been run over by a van if he had not ceased motion. His green eyes looked a little desperate as he responded to the man stopped beside him, hands in his pockets while both of the ginger's arms were now _wrapped_around his waist to make it shut up.

"Why?"

"Never mind, I know you don't," Johnny responded, pushing the other forward when it looked clear, "But I do. Since it appears that you're going to die if you don't eat,"

Both Barry and his stomach groaned at that, not knowing why he was actually letting the other take him to what appeared to be a car similar to Deidre's red classic, but more modern and guy advertised.

"I have a proposal. I give you a ride to a diner I'm going to, and you help me figure out what Crane is going to quiz us on later."

Barry really, really, really wanted to take this olive branch, but, well, Johnny had a reputation for playing both fields. And he was giving him a look that he could not figure out.

"Maybe next time. My mom's been on me to lose some weight. I _have_to walk."

Lie. Lying. Lying was bad and he was going to hate himself later—after he ate.

Johnny got in his car then, that look he had been giving Barry vanishing instantly to be replaced with the one he gave the teacher in class. _Dammit_.

"Whatever, momma's boy."

The redhead put on the pair of glasses Barry frankly believed only belonged in an '80's movie, revved up his car—a fat and deep rumble following the movement of the key—and sped out of the parking lot at twenty miles an hour when the speed limit in school limits was _less_than ten.

"Note to self," Barry muttered as he blurred away from sight, heading for burgers and triple sundaes and fries, the more fat the better, "Find a different seat in class. That guy is gonna be pissed later. _**Dammit**_!"


	49. Jitters

Yay, I've finally gotten to writing with Jason and Cassandra. True, it took me forever, but at least I actually made to going around for it.

* * *

_-:-  
Everything in me for you is absolutely dead—even anger.  
-Frank Lloyd Wright._

* * *

**Jitters-:-**

It was too good to be true that she would avoid the two of them forever.

"…She's from Summerset, not main Gotham. You know how peaceful it is out there, and she wouldn't hurt a soul."

"Not one person since she left the whole lot of the others and even then no more than minor assault to escape the crime scene. Please, Jason, don't do anything stupid."

"Cassandra, I know you and Jason have every reason to be worried, but I sanctioned her to be here as well as with the League. She's perfectly safe."

"Damian and I have been training Terry and, though I have never met her, what I hear is good. You can't judge the story of a book just because you don't like the author."

"…Although I am loathe to admit it, I agree with them. She is as likely to kill someone with a crowbar as she is to not flinch like a rabbit in the presence of those such as ourselves."

"Jason you can't just…"

* * *

"Darling, where did you go…they're going to come back up any minute…where are you?"

Feeling an uncomfortable crick in his back, Terry got up from his bent over position of looking under the dining room table with its long reaching black cloth, holding back a sneeze as more dust got into his nose and throat and eyes. Ace followed after him, sniffing around and looking for the fine young lady that had been in there care for the last some months.

He felt like an idiot. He knew she hadn't left the grounds, because the security protocols would have kicked in and set off an alarm in the Batcave and sent every one of the elder Bats up out of curiosity, as well as caused the three young men in the living room to be on high alert, so by all, the McGinnis boy should have been able to find Deidre, but instead, had turned up nothing.

"Let's see," Terry muttered to himself, bracing against the dining table and counting off on his fingers, Ace whining at his feet as the large black hound could see, just out of the corner of his eye, Damian's little pests scuttling about and watching them; a thing that the dog did not like, "We've checked the attic, the normal basement, the pantry, the garage, the cars in the garage, the cave, all the bedrooms, the fireplace, the roof, the backyard, the pool…what else is left?"

Ace tilted his head and looked to the entrance to the dining room.

Terry followed his gaze and was taken aback by the three young men he knew hadn't been there when he had bent down to check if maybe Deidre was clinging to the inside of the table.

Sweet lord, the Batclan had some good looking kids.

They were all older than him, of course, but not all by that much. Hal, out of his suit, had the face and body structure that Terry could recall Dick having in all of the old pictures in the albums Bruce kept; all tallness and lean muscle and gentle smiles with laced bits of snark in his sentences and movie quotes—except for his eyes and his hair; blue-green and auburn were not a feature that Dick had. Nor could he flit about like Peter Pan. Miss Kori was the cause of that, as well as his rather tan skin; not quite orange, but not normal, either. He would make a great super model if he weren't a cop in Bludhaven.

The other two belonged to Tim and, despite them being a little closer to Terry in age, that didn't make them any less daunting to actually meet. Thomas was big and a little more muscled up than Hal, with dark hair that—if one looked really close and he didn't punch them in the face—had tiny strands of dirty blonde mixed in with the muddy brown. His blue eyes did nothing to add friends as they were always narrowed at people, much to his mother's chagrin. And Mark? Terry first thought he was looking at a more effeminate version of himself when the older teen walked in the door. He had pitch black hair that hung in a ponytail between his shoulders and didn't have nearly enough muscle to be a Bat. That, plus his light green eyes and perky attitude made Terry want to avoid him like he was supposed to be an Arrow or a Speedster.

The older of the three smiled a little at Terry as Mark was bent down and petting Alfred and his kittens, Hades and Persephone, as they did figure eights around his ankles.

"So," Hal started, floating above the floor and moving towards the new Batman as Thomas bent to give Ace a scratch behind the ears, "Who made the little banquet in the kitchen? It looks as though you were expecting a small army."

Terry blinked once and cringed a little, "Well, uh, Deidre did. One of her more nervous quirks, I'm afraid. In anger she cooks, in anxiety she bakes. Barbara's detectives love her for it."

* * *

Walking up the stairs ahead of the others is getting steadily more difficult for Bruce. Tim can see it, and he knows the others can, but they also know that he has his pride and if they say something there will be yelling, so they don't and he suffers through the pains in his joints.

Jason, despite himself, is still quite handsome and sturdy looking, grey hair, save for that streak that will remain forever silver white. Tim secretly thinks that the man doesn't dye the streak because maybe Cassandra likes it and would get annoyed if he tried to cover it up with stuff not for them. If she could suffer through having sooty black lined and laced with annoying grey and whites, he sure as hell could.

Neither of them look very pleased, but they had agreed that they wouldn't try anything on the "wretched hellspawn bitch"—in Jason's words that Tim was pleased to see Damian frown a little at—unless she tried something worse. Tim had double-checked them for firearms with Damian checking both for knives and Dick checking for worse little things before they decided to go up.

Bruce was followed after by Barbara straight into the dining room—Bat father and mother ascending—with Cassandra and Stephanie holding onto the others' arm and the blondie chatting about various things her and Tim's children had been doing recently, Jason behind them with Dick at his shoulder, poking him and talking about various goings on in Bludhaven, as well as poking fun and making jokes completely inappropriate. Damian was at Dick's side, snarky and adding onto the conversation with Jason here and there to make the Red Hood annoyed—Dick told him not to poke the bear.

Tim slowed his pace and as he heard Terry greet the others and the other boys talk, no doubt expressing their opinions on the situation, he turned into the kitchen.

Stepping into the place—it wasn't the same as when Alfred was alive, but since Bruce had taken up both Terry and Deidre it was at least shiny and clean and showed signs of life—Damian and Colin's youngest kitten, the little yellow and brown spotted Persephone, skittered past his ankles and took up residence on the edge of the sink, staring forlornly at the fifty or so masterpieces of delicacies prepared by the young lady Terry apparently couldn't find.

The spread made Tim's mouth water—Danish, fudge truffles, chocolate wrapped cherries, Queen Anne's Laced Angel cake, Devil's food, a little bite-sized cookies and cakes resting beautifully atop the silver tray that stood tall and had to be placed in the biggest cupboard near the sink—but it also made him contemplate the situation. Being raised by the world's greatest detective tended to make him more observant than he had been as a kid.

He could hear Terry much better behind him, as well as Jason and Dick, all joking and talking about what had been happening about Gotham, Terry's abilities and such other things as Damian and Colin training the blonde and brunette, but he tuned them out in favor of looking at the silver tray…the biggest one in the place…

Sighing to himself, heavy as a result of the tiny smoking habit he'd had in college to stay up and study, he snatched up one of the innocent little cookies from the very top of the silver tray, popped it in his mouth—okay, now he got why Babs kept her around; by god the stuff was good—and bent down next to the large cupboard near the sink, Persephone making to play with his hair for a second, batting at the hair that always stood atop his head no matter how much gel he used, but she got bored and went back to staring at the food (if she could, she would jump, but she was so small and Tim suspected she was the proverbial scaredy-cat) while Tim brought up his hand and knocked on the wood twice.

After counting to ten, the former Boy Wonder got the desired response. Despite the cupboard being the biggest in the kitchen, it was still small if it held a living being inside. It would be the perfect place to hide if the person was, say five to ten years old, but he could distinctly hear the warp of wood in fashion of movement.

Tapping again as a warning, Tim carefully took up the handle of the little door—the door that, if touching the ground barely came up to his knees—and opened it up to find the little lady everyone had been talking about (in Jason's case, screaming about) pressed as far backwards into the confined place as possible, eyes wide as a feral cat in a box and sitting on her hair.

"That does not look comfortable," Tim said casually getting up from his crouched position—getting old was such a bitch when it took up residence in the joints—to lean against the island, taking up another cookie to nibble on.

It took a moment to get anything but the sound of her breathing out of the girl, but finally, she spoke up, though not by much, "I…It's not. I lost all the feeling in my arms and legs about an hour ago."

"How long have you been in there?"

"….Six, maybe seven hours. I didn't want to take the chance that you guys would show up early."

"We did show up early," Tim nodded, Persephone jumping down from her perch to sniff at Deidre's cramped form, paws stepping on yellow strands of her hair, "But you didn't have to hide in the cupboard. Damn good hiding spot, though."

She didn't say anything by this, but did smile as the kitten rubbed up against the girl's knees.

Tim finished off the cookie and placed himself back in a crouch, a very light but sincere smile in place, "Jason agreed not to bludgeon you with anything, or shoot or knife you. We checked both him and Cass for weapons and you're all good. Can you come out of there now?"

Deidre's fingers tapped on the wood above her head a moment—Tim could only imagine how painful it must have been to keep it bent above and behind her head but could understand the need for feeling safe at any cost—and kept looking from Tim's blue eyes to the doorway and ceiling overhead. She didn't seem to think either option was very pleasing, but…

"Alright," she answered, taking a moment, Tim could guess, to prepare for motion, "Just let me exhale."

In spite of being about to ask exactly what that meant, Tim took in the sight of what needed to happen in order for the small—so small, so tiny—young woman to get out. She took in a deep breath that seemed to only expand her lungs as much as a centimeter and still made the wood creek, and when she wheezed out every last once of air he practically saw her collapse in on herself before pushing both arms past the cupboard opening—this giving Tim the image popping into his head of a spider's legs just flashing out of the darkness—to grip the bottom of the cabinets and the very edge and top of the sink. She pulled herself out, legs unwrapping out of something like a poster Dick used to have of a well-jointed circus performer going in and out of a treasure chest, and pulled up and onto the counter like Harley had often done—as well as Tim remembered—when she hung out with Ivy in warehouses. Beautiful in a strange way that almost made him sad, because he could hear a lot of her bones pop and could see some healing cuts along her hands and upper arms on account of her sleeves being pulled up, hair trailing after her like a tail or silk spun out to make a net.

Tim shut the cupboard door with his foot, and the noise of the latch on the little door clicking caused Persephone to bolt out of the kitchen and back into the dining room.

Both of them, Tim in a less exaggerated way than Deidre, flinched when Ace yipped from inside the dining room and came bounding into the kitchen. All three of Damian's cats followed him, as well as the entirety of the Batfamily members.

Terry had this look that Tim would have to classify as the "OMG, Mah Baby!" look that the salt'n'pepper haired man had seen on a surprising few people's face. It usually resided with women—especially Stephanie and Irey West—and was totally humorous on this young man that took up the mantle, now staring almost in horror at Deidre's exposed knees and ankles, blood circulating back into the cut off joints that had been rather lacking for the last some hours, gaunt and apparent against her usually pale skin.

"Somebody get me a glass," Thomas leered, a lot like a few people the Batclan had put into prison; causing his dad and mom to sulk a little at him being the one to break the silence, "I just found a tall drink of water."

"Please, Thomas, not now," Stephanie groaned, pressing her palm against her eyes.

Jason, despite common sense, managed to get by both Terry and Bruce and Babs and before Tim could really move, was standing on the other side of the sink, within an arm's reach of the little blonde and…looking at her in this way that was wholly uncomfortable. No, worse than uncomfortable. That bullet she had suffered the week before Terry had caught Deidre in Smallville was uncomfortable—this was unpleasant as it was when she was looking down the wrong end of the rifle that had shot the bullet.

Because, really, who on this man's earth didn't think Jason was as good as a loaded weapon?

Jason looked up and down Deidre's frame, looking for something and, as it appeared, didn't find it. The frown he was sporting rode back like the tide on the beach into something far _less_menacing. Pursed lips and a raised brow followed and he looked over to Bruce—the man with all the answers—in the same instance of pointing at the girl (her leaning away and clutching the edge of the counter in a white-knuckle grip as a result).

"What the hell is this?"

"…Pardon?" Bruce and Barbara echoed, Terry removing himself from the gaggle of Batmembers to take a spot on the counter next to his friend, their shoulders touching.

"You said she was Joker's brat," Jason started again, fingers flicking up and down at certain features and coming off much less menacing as Hades and Persephone used him to rub against, Alfred sitting below Terry's feet with Ace near Tim in hopes of getting some of the sugary goodness within sight, "But she's…she's a mini-Harley."

"What, you were expecting horns and a tail?" Damian questioned, taking up going into the other cupboards for those paper plates he knew his father kept around from the few visits he'd given the old man before McGinnis took up the mantle; the place being so lacking in good food that there used to be receipts for take-out everywhere. Damian would always be silently grateful that the little insects that worked for his father had started cooking proper meals, allowing for use of silver and glass wear and not those ungodly plastic utensils that came with delivery.

Terry opened his mouth in snark, but was interrupted by the least talkative member of the family—Cass, Cassandra, Cassie? It was hard for the teen to remember—going to stand across the island, taking up one of the cookies and talking through the crumbs, and speaking delicately, "She's a little jittery."

"Of course she is," Mark said, taking his spot on the floor to rub on Ace's ears and looking up at the blonde like she was a puppy (to which Terry wanted to actually physically punch him in the face), "Any gorgeous Red Riding Quinn would be scared of the Big Bad Hood."

That was followed by _Deidre_looking like she wanted to punch the brunette.

As the blonde and brunette ladies started talking, not entirely to, but at or around this person they could not really perceive as a threat at the moment—not with Thomas taking a perch on the end of the counter, Mark playing with the kittens, Hal standing beside the island and eating and every one of the young men hitting on the spawn of who everyone thought to have been Satan before being fried in Arkham—Bruce and Barbara gave each other a confirming look.

It wasn't much, but it was a start.


	50. All Soul's Day

This is the fiftieth chapter of the fic…I don't think I've ever been so daunted by a number. I never actually thought I would make it to the fiftieth. That's like, what, the crown jewel? As such, this chapter is special. It will involve both twins, the League, opposing points of view, violence, etc. WHOO-HOO!

Also, this chapter gives a very, very special shout-out to Rose Midnight Moonlight Black. If one should read a particular one of her one-shots, they can see why that is.

* * *

_-:-  
Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven-  
But better still to reign in both.  
-A Faust Book._

* * *

_All Soul's Day-:-_

_**November **__**2nd**__**—11: 25 PM:**_

Twenty-seven people were dead. Twenty-seven people; men and women, all very different, save for a few things like background, income and those sorts of things; brunette men with green eyes and blonde haired women with blue eyes. All had been killed apart and then been found together in places Barbara and few others knew.

Barbara thanked God that Bruce had not been at that charity that the last man (older than all the others, but who still fit the pattern) had been stolen from, but knew, deep down, that he wouldn't have been a target. There was a point being made with those dead—_when was there not a point being made by lunatics_?—bodies and she knew that when it came out just why it was done—the truth always did, eventually—it would be all the more tragic to the waste of life.

But nothing was coming out.

It had been exactly one hour and ten minutes since Batman had dragged in through her window at the precinct—himself a complete wreck and suit actually torn enough to see the mottled skin and blood from his injuries—the little bitch that had thrown all of this monstrosity of a situation together.

Sam would be coming from the office in about twenty minutes to attempt to talk to the young woman—_thing, monstrosity, attempted sister murdering, hell-spawn, __**Little Girl**_—in the cell downstairs in booking with the electrified bars and the tranquilizing gun kept on retainer by Detective Bullock "Just in case" and who hadn't said a word since saying "Hello" to Barbara. Barbara's husband would try and make a deal with the woman, go easy on her in exchange for information on all of the ties—like Moriarty in the Holmes books; ties and strings in all the criminal exchanges, hands in all of it and spider at the center of a web always feeling every tremor of illegal vibrations—she had. Though, Barbara was pretty sure that Joker's Daughter knew that the best the District Attorney could do for her was get her a room in Arkham with a clean bed and a television set. There was no way the twin would get a room in the upper floors of the Asylum; no, she would be stuck in maximum security of the floor at the very bottom, with the rock walls and no windows and bullet proof glass to see through. So very Silence of the Lambs.

Until her husband arrived, however, Barbara wanted to make inquiries of her own.

Standing up from her desk, knees sore and a little heated from joint pain, she took along her coffee mug—the adorable one that Terry had gotten her when Deidre had reminded him about the Commissioner's anniversary of receiving her father's job; the one that was pink and white and looked like a barn owl's face—along with her and tried to block out the heavy music playing upstairs in the Archives Room repeating the same thing since she knew that Batman had told Quinn to clean up and stay there until she was off shift. Like every thing's _normal_.

She shut her door and absorbed the music and lyrics from above her, before the sounds from below invaded her systems like being shot full of Thorazine.

"_…Here we go, welcome to my funeral. Without you, I don't even have a pulse. All alone it's dark and cold; With every move I die…"_

* * *

_**10:15 PM-**_

Gritting his jaw like he had that one time when Blight had landed a particularly hard punch to his face and Bruce had contemplated giving the young man drugs to numb the pain since it was going to be throbbing no matter what the next day, Terry clutched hard to the back of Delia's bruised purple jacket. She was tied up a bit like a calf at the rodeo, compliments of himself thanks to some of Damian's latest training. The green haired psychopath didn't resist, but made do with looking back at the Batmobile perched on the roof, wild and malicious eyes taking in every detail of the tears she managed to get out of her sister; whom still sat in the passenger seat, glaring but not sobbing like Delia had hoped to prolong.

The night had been more fun than Delia had hoped. Even if she had lost half her gang, she was sure, to the back-up heroes the Dark Knight had brought along to round up the grinning masses and deposit them in all of the Gotham precincts, and half of the little buggers—no doubt including Ghoul and Woof—had not bothered to stick around after the Tell All. The night had been fun.

Batman stopped at the edge of the building, hand never leaving her scruff of a coat as he hauled her over the edge while sliding down via his "skills" to the fire escape and the window of the Commissioner's office. She hit the meshed and slightly rusty metal first, absently remarking, "Aw, Batsy, do you have to play so rough? Not that I'm complaining, mind you, I just didn't think you were into that sort of thing."

He didn't respond to her beyond slamming her, ass first, onto the brick edge of the Commissioner's window, fingers sliding under the sill and pulling it up despite all the ice from the recent snow and cold of November that tried to keep it sealed up tight giving resistance at first. She wiggled a little, despite the cold slush creeping along her ripped tights being no real bother to her; more like the circulation was being cut off along her ankles from the super tight knots of the ropes.

Like being pushed and not knowing where you're going to land, Delia fell backwards and into the comfortably warm room of the cop house as the window opened fully and she didn't have anything to brace her back against anymore.

Had she not been tied up, she would have landed on her spine and rolled into a standing up or a handstand position. Instead, she landed sideways, head cracking on the floor and she got to look up at the frowning, not as surprised as most people would have been, Commissioner Gordon.

"Well, hello there," Delia greeted, sounding slightly drunk, but not really caring. The blood rush from that tiny fall gave her vertigo and Batman popped in, hand latching to her jacket once more and pulling her onto the guest chair sitting in front of Gordon's desk.

The Bat got right down to business, speaking only to Gordon, despite Delia still grinning at him as she could tell—how could she not, after the last few hours of running around and getting to know each other—he was glaring at the leader of the crime rings of Gotham from out of the corner of his mask and eyes. She wished she had torn that mask more; not knowing his eye color was annoying. Just seeing all that red wiring was so boring and cumbersome.

"Most of the Jokerz were rounded up; some of the Justice League had to take them to different station houses, though. Too many for here."

"So I gathered," the aged woman replied, pointing to the ever ringing phone on her desk and all the red and yellow buttons that had been lit since half an hour before.

"Also," Batman continued, swallowing some bloody spit that had built up in his throat, voice coming out hoarse since his lungs had been rather pulverized from chasing Delia through alleys and atop rooftops and fighting her with all those heavy and sharp objects, "I have on record her confessions, and reasons, to the twenty-eight people she killed."

Gordon looked confused at that, blinking as Batman gave her a tiny little chip from the inside of one of his pockets of his utility belt, "She only killed twenty-seven that we know of."

Batman didn't say anything to that statement, actually turning to glare at Delia with a frown that would probably make a convicted mass murderer piss himself like a three year old. She looked through some of her green locks of sinewy hair and just smiled, red lips stretched and at ease.

Batman leaned over Gordon's desk and pressed the button that he knew, had known, lit up an alert in the bull pen. In twenty seconds, Bullock, and most probably, Duquesne would come barreling into the rooms, guns at the ready.

Not looking at either woman, law abiding or sadistic lunatic, Batman left through the window and replied back, only just loud enough to hear, "Just listen to the record."

The window shut tight, cutting off the flickers of melting snow as it made to get inside like tiny little moths to the heat of flame, inevitably fated to be snuffed out seconds after impact.

There wasn't even a breath taken, or a tick of the clock in-between the window shutting and Gordon's most trusted detectives, indeed and forthright and each with a weapon drawn, slamming through the door bodily; Duquesne at the forefront and the rest lining in behind her, each with gloriously shocked expression imprinted upon their figures as they stopped inside and caught full sight of the little nymphet sitting comfortably in her seat.

Barbara frowned as Delia gave all of the four detectives a wave with both hands in a fashion—thanks to those handcuffs—that made it look like she was playing with her hands and shadows and trying to make a large butterfly sized moth.

* * *

_**9:20 PM-**_

Smirk had been caught up by Warhawk. That was fairly amazing for Woof to see as the green haired, top hat, African-American man was easily twice the size of the armored hero, and not to mention insanely good to watch as Warhawk was also being attacked—quick jabs, a flashing knife, but no kicks—by Chucko at the time. The fat man normally didn't spend time fighting, which left Woof often cursing his existence, but not tonight.

Tonight, through some glorious act of God on the anniversary of some event that Delia had been muttering about for the last few weeks—plans so meticulous and careful and still unraveled like a ball of yarn by a house cat—Woof got to watch as the hero bagged both Chucko—may he rot in his prison cell as Woof left, trailing a little too slowly behind Ghoul for the blonde's comfort—and Smirk nearly within five minutes of fighting. Ghoul was a block ahead, Woof knew, but he had to take stock of all the others that were captured; he didn't want them following the two of them to Melanie's apartment.

Smirk and Chucko were cuffed and unconscious. Dot had been snatched up by water from the sewers below, compliments of Aquagirl, and had been taken away with Cue and Scab to a lesser precinct. Pilo, Trey and Weasel were just getting the runaround by the smallest and youngest Green Lantern Woof had ever seen, on TV or otherwise; looking calm and so like one of the Buddhists that Woof remembered his father talking to occasionally when he was young.

Ghoul had confirmed that Deidre had knocked down and out J-Man when Batman had launched after Delia—most definitely through a window and onto an adjacent building, laughing her head off—and was, in Ghoul's opinion, pretending not to notice the two of them being there. She hadn't spoken to the blonde or Woof; she was too busy following after the Bat and pointedly not looking down the halls as she left. Ghoul had been crouched in a doorway and got the hint.

Turning from the sight of the fellow Jokerz being caught up, Woof took off again after Ghoul, nose pointing and leading him the way his friend had left. He hadn't gotten far, Woof managed to catch up swiftly, seeing as Ghoul was carrying his laptop and pumpkin in his wiry arms; eyes wide as a chased rabbit's and a little bloodshot, apparent and easy to see as the hacker had not a bit of makeup on. To think if they had left an hour before and he hadn't taken a shower, they would have missed out on all of this fun.

* * *

_**8:59 PM-**_

Green eyes like both his mother and father blinked up at the downright terrifying visage and horrors painted into and onto the outer walls of the _Blue Rose_hotel; Rex stayed silent in stride and in reverence of awe at the place. Batman had said to be prepared when they touched down in Gotham from the Watchtower, but Warhawk hadn't quite understood why until he looked up into the burning, psychotic eyes of the Joker painted from a memory the hero and his teammates could never have fathomed—even if any of the League commented on the clown beyond certain facts involving the Batclan as a whole.

Rex didn't do much but stifle a shiver as Merina pressed closer to his side, bright eyes dimmed under the dark gaze of the painted Dark Knight and Kai-Ro hovering closer to Rex's front in a sulk of some bad feeling that came upon him from looking on at the child in the paint, knowing who he was and regretting so at the moment as the Lantern had never thought of the man he knew today as that creature back before Kai had even been born.

"You'll take the back," Batman stated, voice hushed, but not afraid like the full-time League members, striding ahead of them all at a confident gate, Quinn—his Quinn, not at all the one smiling mournfully down on all things from the wall—directly behind him and making it a point to not look at anything but the way to all exits of the hotel, "Darling and I will take the front door. There's only one other exit and that's up; but most of them are too cowardly to jump. Just get in, get them tied up, send them to the police. Understand?"

"We've done this before, Bats," Warhawk answered back, eyes narrowed, but all muscle and strength tightened and well ready for a fight, just like his mother when she was young, "You aren't dealing with amateurs."

One to stop fighting before it began between the two apparent and tremendously difficult alpha males, Merina spoke up, slipping closer to Batman so her voice could stay low and there wouldn't be further risk of being caught from something so stupid as talking too loud; as if they were in a church or a library rather than out in the freezing cold in a neighborhood overrun with rapscallions, "Any tips about rounding them all up?"

Batman continued a half-glare at Rex, but responded to Merina simply, none noticing the semi-proud look cross over Deidre's face at his remark, "Expect the unexpected."

Rex scoffed as the lot of them broke off into two separate groups at the corner of the building, the last thing any of them noticing of that environment being the blue eyes of Quinn—the old, dead one that Rex had insulted and had Deidre hating him ever since in League head quarters—in paint staring down at them, "Spoken like a true Bat."

* * *

_**7:35 PM-**_

The house was in much better condition than Bruce ever thought it would be, but, at the very least, he was glad that there was no longer blood on the walls or floor and the chair that had served as a final rest and only comfort to the dead woman in her final instances was gone. He's never be so crass to ask how the younger twin had gotten the place so clean after such gruesome events, but he would later be inclined to ask her why exactly she had made him—with his blistered old hands and grim face that did not a thing to turn her blood cold—carry around the can of ashes as she and Terry walked about in the very homey kitchen and set about odds and ends that she was still explaining to the perturbed 2nd Dark Knight.

"Okay, okay, let me get this straight," Terry questioned, coat removed and on the hanger peg nailed into the wall by the door, looking quite comfortable in the house that hadn't seen a visitor since Deidre had fled Gotham, but retained its beauty and feeling of actually being lived-in (unlike the manor), "You're telling me that today, unlike a few days ago when Halloween was in full swing, is the actual day when people made offerings to ghosts or whatever?"

Bruce sighed as he took a seat at the kitchen table, Harley's ashes still gripped between his hands in the rather unsightly coffee can, but looking a bit more at home in this particular environment. He really had to buff up Terry on more history. Really, after stuffing in so much on detecting techniques, Bruce would have thought the McGinnis boy would buff up on history and useless facts more than ever.

Deidre just smiled patiently at Terry, shooing him away from the over as she put on her mitts and pulled out the heated and wonderful smelling cookies that Terry was rather chagrined to know that he would not be enjoying until tomorrow after this "holiday" was over, "Sort of. Halloween, technically, is more to scare away wicked ghosts, goblins, witches, those sorts of things. This date is more like a surrender in knowing that some spirits won't be chased off by merry making and costumes, or sweets."

"And Harley acknowledged this as an actual holiday?" Terry asked, brow raised and hand just shuffling ever so slowly to grab at one little cookie, before she took the pan and gave him a whack along the knuckles that singed a bit.

"Yes," Deidre replied simply, putting the tray into the sink and pretending not to notice as Terry managed to swipe away one cookie and quickly down it, "She had friends who knew well enough about it, and thought it was better safe than sorry. There were a lot of people she knew who passed over during the years and some of them knew magic. Better to spend one night with food not being eaten on the table than to risk getting a hex and a half by some people who shall remain nameless."

"Suppose that makes sense," Bruce replied for Terry, his weathered fingers tracing the lid of Harley's ashes. His body didn't change or reflect surprise when Terry's communicator with the League went off, but he did feel a little disappointed. A call from the League meant they had to leave this small, quiet and more importantly, informative little house to go back to work.

When they left, Deidre asked Bruce to leave the ashes on the table next to the cookies, the lit candle she had left burning that smelled of Tea Rose and locked the house with the key forever on the chain around her neck. Bruce, at least, knew the way to the house now. He would come back for the ashes tomorrow if the two teens were too exhausted to remember.

It wasn't her. Ashes of a body when the soul had left the mortal plane were not the person, but Bruce knew that if it was him, it would be like Hell being in a house alone.


	51. Silent for Years

Oh, yes. I have not up-dated this in a while, but I beg for forgiveness. It's hard writing this as well as a few other things for RMMB and the LOSH fiction. It's getting so I have only enough hours in the day to sleep for five…

* * *

_-:-  
Tattoo your name across my heart,  
So it will remain.  
Not even death could make us part…  
What kind of dream is this?  
-Sweet Dream or Beautiful Nightmare._

* * *

**Silent for Years-:-**

It is amazing that Bruce could remember the way back across the wide expanse of secret roads by himself, but he somehow did. He hasn't really driven himself anywhere since the joints in his hands started cramping for no particular reason, but today he is especially awake and full of energy. Not precisely good energy—God forbid anything could be good today with the media in a frenzy and that little retch preening herself in pictures—but it is energy enough to get out of the manor while Terry is still at school (probably napping during math class at this time before the nine AM bell rang) and he knows Barbara and Deidre are out of town to interview various people on some murders near the change of jurisdiction into Bludhaven.

The roads that lead away from the echoing sounds of the city travel well along the coast for about twenty minutes before coming to the three point fork in the road. One way lead back to the city, one was the main road he had once taken up to the old skeleton of a building that was Old Arkham—hundreds of times with Joker or Ivy or Crane and the rest; even sometimes having Jim Gordon as a ride-along—and the other one was so fine and untraveled that he could barely make out its outlines for tires. But he knows now where that leads and steers his long black car that way; some of the snow on the ground crunches below and echoes between the hollows of the tires.

It takes him about a half-hour to maneuver along the ancient and massive trees that the road curve to and fro from, two particular ones over hanging in such a downward slope that some of their long twigs and branches touch the roof of his black car and he flinches at the sounds of paint being scratched away. But, the journey is well worth it when he finally spots the huge, weathered yellow tree that stands out in the vast yard like a silent guardian watching all who would enter the two floor house.

Bruce parked and stepped out of the car, leaving his cane behind. He doesn't want anyone to know that he was here without someone else. It was rude enough that he made a copy of the key Deidre carried around on her neck like it was a holy relic, but it was even worse that he was snooping around this place that had been left untouched and all by itself since Harley had died and her grandchildren had begun to rage a war on each other and upon Gotham. True, Deidre had visited to clean house in a rather unhealthy way—he wouldn't judge her for that, however, as he had done something rather like that after his parents had died; changing the sheets in the bedrooms and dusting everything until he was sure that Alfred was ready to tear his hair out—every other week like a tiny maid, but other than that, the property had been left in silence. Totally alone.

Stepping onto the porch—long and spread out; a sort of veranda with scuffed paint along the banisters that held up the side of the next floor as proof that children had played there and probably did acrobats along the way—Bruce ignores, very plainly and firmly, the shaking in his hands as he took out the key from his pocket, thumb tracing the too-smooth line of teeth that made the key itself, and slid it into the lock of the doorknob.

The key clicked in and he turned it twice, the thing offering some resistance as though to say "_imposter, this is not right, stay out, stay out_" but eventually the door opened for him and the cold air of winter swept into the foyer and intermingled with the heat provided inside, thermostat left at a steady fifty-nine degrees to keep the water pipes from freezing.

He stepped in and closed the door before the one inch of snow on the porch tried to seep in like frosty fingers; the heat tracing along his cheekbones felt like the kisses Selina had given him before she died. His shoes left two small horse shoes of snow as he tapped them—toes first—to the floor and he moved further inwards, one hand to the wall and not bothering with the light switch as it was daytime and the windows along every available space of the walls let in plenty of almost unbearably clean sunshine that reflected off of the snow outside.

He didn't bother going into the kitchen—_with its dishes in the cabinets, all nothing fancy but still beautiful and delighting to the eye_—or the living room—_with its piano and record player and radio, with the spot in the room that he knew she had died in, looking at the wall now repainted a fine Casino Green by Deidre and Terry so it was no longer in the spectrum of beige or blood turned the color of rust_—but made instead for the upstairs. He had yet to see anything of the upstairs when he had come last with his ward and Barbara's.

He paused at the banister of the stairs and took in a small breath of air, '_Oh, it smells like her still…_' and took the first step toward the unknown.

He didn't weigh as much as when he was younger, all muscle and stealth, but he still managed to make the boards in the stairs creak rather feebly every three steps. Bruce grinned a little at that, feeling with his shoes and instinct the way the wood was tilted just so and curved to make the noise. If he had been a normal person, he might think that it was from warping with age or shoddy craftsmanship, but he was Batman—and still is, and always would be—and felt that the creaking was built in like a warning system; a lesson to learn for little children that got up in the middle of the night to sneak into the kitchen and get snacks (bless the memories he still had of himself doing the same thing when he was about seven, for BEFORE and Alfred being at the bottom of the stairs to look upon him disapprovingly).

Harley certainly hadn't pulled any punches while raising her brood.

At that thought, though it made him happy, it also made him heartsick and he felt a little burn in the back of his eyes and bit his tongue.

The thought crept unbidden into him as he got to the last step and stopped at the lining of a long hallway and another. There were three doors that he could see in the one hall and he took a contemplative look down the other hall leading away from the other three. That way was probably to Harley's room, judging by the closeness it lay to the staircase and he turned down it.

The door was shut, but it wasn't locked.

His blue eyes shut and he took the plunge in turning the knob and opening the door like it was leading into a torture chamber or something, rather than the small, bright room it actually was.

Bruce looked about and found himself really seeing things as they most likely had been for the woman and her children when she had lived and lived in the house. This room had not been touched since before Harley had been killed—the blankets on the bed, large and fluffy, red and white with black lace trim, were still tossed about from the woman getting up to make breakfast or something; the book she had been reading was still laying with itself split near down the middle to keep in place, the title "_The Yellow Wallpaper" _standing out almost obscenely; and her bed slippers and night dress were flung onto the dresser placed into the corner furthest from the bed, three of the drawers still open and revealing socks, knitted shirts and her perfume cases.

The Wayne family head blushed a little at seeing some of Harley's underwear poking out from under some of her clothes and almost shut the door to leave entirely to look about the other rooms, if not for seeing—just cresting the edge of the carpet and shadow underneath the bed, a leather bound book, rather large and obviously made to hold pictures.

The family album?

"Oh, damn," Bruce muttered under his breath and through his gritting teeth. Of course, he would actually have to find something interesting in the room of one of his dead Rogues when he was about to duck out from self-loathing to even be in the place. If Harley was a ghost and watching him right now—and there was a good chance she was, after all Bruce was associated with Deadman and Etrigan, God only knew it wouldn't hurt to add Harley to the list of beings that still kept tabs on his from beyond—she would most likely be beaming at how he stooped down to pick up the book, knees grinding and back popping as he stood back up again.

There was no doubt that, as he blew away the dust atop the book, he would feel deliciously guilty later for invading a dead woman's privacy, but seeing as it was giving way to curiosity now, it could wait until he was back home. And, maybe a little longer if Barbara didn't call him tonight.

Nothing was written on the cover and his pale hand stood out frankly against the dark cover as he turned it. Inside, on the first page and bound up by that sticky plastic covering people used to use for cards to make appointments with doctors or lawyers, his blue eyes were quickly captivated by the image of a young woman that was neither Delia, Deidre, nor Harley.

This was probably Harley and Joker's daughter.

She was about fifteen or sixteen in the large 10x7 inch picture that took up the page like a plaque, and she looked no less like Harley than she did Joker. She stood tall and pale—not like chalk, but like certain rabbit pelts that turned more creamy with age—against what looked like a redbrick apartment complex. Her eyes were a green like Joker's hair, lips widely stretched out and ruby red just like the Clown Prince, and Bruce narrowed and widened his eyes to see if it would make any difference, but her couldn't tell if her hair—choppy, short, rather like Joan Jett when she was starting out—was died an acid green to cover up dark blonde hair, or was fading into green after being died bottle blonde. She was wearing a rather form fitting black leather jacket—like a Hell's Angel or a fighter pilot—torn and scuffed blue jeans and actual combat boots Bruce had seen more times than not on soldiers going out on a mission in Bangladesh. She looked terrifying and Bruce was suddenly glad he had never met her while she was alive.

He checked, but there was no name on the photo or the page. He didn't mind. Maybe some things were for other times.

Turning the page with one last blue eyed glare at the grinning woman, Bruce was taken suddenly by two pictures side by side; equal and perhaps more than that to Harley.

One of them was like the one that Harley had sent to him in her apology letter, sitting in the Batcave. Two little newborn girls were being held by Harley in a hospital room (not a trace or sign of their actual mother anywhere in the frame), but this one was a little different than his picture. The one girl that had been shrieking and holding onto Harley's hair was asleep and totally bound up in her blanket, while the other one was awake and looking up at Harley with the clearest blue eyes Bruce had ever seen besides on Dick or maybe Damian. It was a sweet difference and if Bruce ever got his shot, he would actually—verbally and with humility—as Deidre if he could bring this album back to the Batcave.

He looked to the other picture and his breath caught in his throat.

This picture was forty-something years old, a little crinkled at the edges, but no less important. In the frame, there was Harley, face a little tired and hair sticking to her face, but smiling quite genuinely in a hospital bed—though, apparently, not an American hospital, as he could see no medical trays, no plastic gloves, no IV in her arm and blood on what appeared to be a white nightgown worn to bed and not to any sort of sterile environment that she was wearing, and whom appeared to be three African woman (nurses, doctors?) smiling behind her and in frame—with a sleeping newborn in her arms. There were marks on Harley's arms like scarring and the picture was Sepia, very old fashioned—_like in a third world country_—but there was no doubt that when the camera had clicked and the frame was captured, she had been exceedingly happy.

Bruce closed the book and tucked it under his arm when he saw that for the next couple pages were nothing but naked baby pictures of the twins.

So maybe he wouldn't ask Deidre for permission to look over Harley's scrapbook. He was Batman, and a little embarrassment might be just the thing to lift her out of the angst the whole of the Batclan and some of the League and, of course, friends in general that they knew, had been in since they learned about how exactly Harley had died.

He was Batman, he could do as he liked.

But he still shut the door to Harley's room, found a broom and cleaned up the melted snow from the house before locking the front door as he left.


	52. The Right Side of the Tracks

It's not Halloween anymore, I know, I know, but this came about while trying to move on. Forgive me for posting this so late… More to do with the detectives of Gotham, though, so yay!

* * *

_-:-  
Wondered what it's like to touch and feel something…  
Monster, how should I feel? Creatures lie here,  
Looking through the window…  
-Monster: Meg & Dia._

* * *

**The Right Side of the Tracks-:-**

_**October 31**__**st**__**, 10:25 pm-**_

"Sam, honey, your tie looks fine," Barbara smiled, coaxing her husband's hands from the fluffy red thing around his neck that served to make him look like Ichabod Crane from the time of the Puritans when most trials were a sham, or merely a preamble to burning a witch or blasphemer at the stake, "Stop fidgeting."

The District Attorney ceased the touching and moving about of the thing on his neck that Barbara called a tie, but more or less looked more like a snipped off piece of a lace fancy dress, and sighed, bringing his arm back up to allow Barbara—beautiful in her costume of Madame Giry of The Phantom of the Opera, all late eighteen hundreds with black and white lace and a shawl of fantastic blue; her glasses hidden in her, well, loose corset, and a sort of leather black choker about her lithe neck—to hold onto as they made about the fringe of the Policeman's Ball.

The place was beautifully done up. All low lighting, except for the dance area, food in abundance on the tables against the walls, spider webs along the walls and the ceiling (how the decorating committee had managed that, Barbara couldn't imagine) with two witches cauldrons sitting at each door giving off waves of mist to make the place even more festive—it didn't smell bad like she remembered in school, seeing as Deidre changed the mixture to smell like chocolate at the front entrance and vanilla at the back—and creepy at the same time.

"Don't be so high strung," Barbara continued as they travelled to the table that had the chocolate fountain and also had two old friends of Barbara's standing there talking to their son, "Harvey won't shoot you, no matter what Internal Affairs may have said about him. And Renee is just the sweetest woman ever."

"I suppose I'm just nervous," the dark skinned man defended half-heartedly, eyes glancing over the elder Bullock that still stood tall and proud despite being as old as the both of them and a little older still, towering in his own skin like a historic, neo-gothic giant beside his son, dressed in a costume picked by Miss Larkin as it was picked for all of Barbara's special four so that they could attend the party but wouldn't have to leave work and waste time picking something out, "You speak so highly of them, and I've only ever met their son. Mister Bullock doesn't look as…unmade…as in his old photos, though."

Barbara laughed at that, the crisp sound of her joviality dimming as they were within reach of the lot of the Bullocks and whispered (almost as though it were a wicked, wicked secret) in her husband's ear, "That's because after Renee gained weight from having Ray, he dared her to lose more than him within a year. She won, and her prize was that he'd stay on his diet of no more cigars and no doughnuts unless on special occasions."

Sam grinned at his wife and they came to a stop before one of the few of the legacies of the Gotham police force.

Former detective Harvey Bullock stood beside the smaller food items that were spattered on golden plates with toothpicks sticking out of them, five fitting easily in one large hand and was speaking plainly—voice as loud and attention attracting as it had ever been or would be—about Gotham happenings with his son. Renee stood beside him with his other arm draped pleasantly and not so heavy over her back, laughing occasionally when Ray said a joke, while sipping at pumpkin punch and once and a time frowning about the pipe that her son was smoking that went with his costume. Harvey was dressed, per Renee's insistence, in a costume that made him look like an American soldier from the Revolutionary War, with all the buttons undone so he could breathe and a fake musket strapped to his back; Renee, to match and in a way that made them look perfect together, was dressed as a pilgrimess, but without the white bonnet, with her hair down.

Ray stood dressed, arms waving with the story he was regaling them with, as Sherlock Holmes. He was in the elaborate brown and tan coat and black suit underneath it, with the hunting cap and the long pipe that Deidre had gotten so he could smoke if his nerves got the better of him, but Alcana got the tobacco for him that smelt much more pleasant than the cigarettes Ray regularly smoked.

"…and then, Duquesne tackled the guy by pulling down on his horn and gripping that gold ring hanging from his nose; it was the most awesome collar this year!"

Ray was apparently talking about work and Barbara rolled her eyes as she and Sam came to a stop, with Harvey needing for Renee to pull on his musket strap to bring his attention to the Commissioner and her husband, her dark eyes bright and looking over Babs in a way most women had that night. Barbara was still most pleased that she could still turn a few heads at her age.

"Why, if it isn't Commissioner Gordon and the District Attorney," Renee spoke to get Ray's attention as well, bringing up a hand to shake with Barbara and Sam, "We were wondering when you were going to come over here."

"Forgive us for stalling," Babs grinned, "We were just talking with all the high and mighty of the IAB and looking for my other three bug brained lay-abouts."

At the mention of Sanchez, Duquesne and Alcana, the younger Bullock cringed a little, teeth biting down on his wooden pipe and grinding marks that hollowed into it like the teeth of a dog on bone when his master surprises him with a rolled up newspaper to the head.

That was almost exactly what Barbara had been hoping for.

* * *

_**10:32 pm-**_

"Can you please, just act somewhat like an adult, just for tonight?"

"It's Halloween," came the sly response, quickly followed by a light yelp of pain, "Oh, come on, Duquesne, get into the spirit of being wicked and clever! Tonight is supposed to be fun."

Growling low and deep from behind the door of the ladies locker room, Duquesne could be heard muttering curses as Deidre finished up the detective's costume, and there was a little bang that might have been her foot kicking the door, "Sanchez, give Alcana another swat over the head for me, will you?"

Alcana—dressed to the nines in his costume that was a rather specific replica to Watson in a very old BBC movie from the 1970's that included a tan bowler hat with matching coat and pretentious beige and brown suit—took a look at the door with wide eyes and, not bothering to even try to escape (there was no point when Sanchez was twice his size and a whole lot faster), braced up, hunching his shoulders. The older detective snorted and, indeed, cuffed the back of the ginger's head.

Sanchez—oh, yes, he was indeed in costume as well; a full body black coat/cloak that covered him like a soot black ink stain the size of a human being, a bloody red silk scarf encircling his neck once and, for "fun" as Miss Larkin had so eloquently put it, blue Henna paint decorating both of his hands as though he were covered with ivy leaves and ancient Egyptian as he was supposed to be some sort of Midcentury sorcerer—rolled his eyes and knocked on the door, "Are you almost decent, or are we going to be stuck here until after midnight?"

"Detective Sanchez," came a much more delicate, proper voice from beyond the warped wood and metal of the door, "Please step away from the door and at least pretend that you're not a smug smart-ass when Detective Duquesne steps out, in five…for…three…two…"

Both of the men stepped back and braced the wall to take in the view as the door did indeed open. There was nothing but the sight of the locker room at first—huh, the paint on the walls was black and the floor tiling was light blue and not pink, a very unexpected thing to see—but then, a shadow passed into the light and Duquesne emerged graciously and in full costume. Both of the men stopped breathing for a jolt and blinked twice to make sure they weren't hallucinating.

The short, lady detective brushed a stray bang out of her eyes that had struggled out of her sausage curls and resisted a blush, standing in a dress that looked like it had been produced for a duchess in the days of Alice and the Mad Hatter; all white lace and sleek with a ruffled black that reached from the crest of her neckline, down her back and split off at the pomp resting on her hips. What looked like the black spades on playing cards dangled from both of her ears and was a long, dominating scepter held in her long, white gloved hand. To put it in short phrase, she looked like a gorgeous aristocrat in a fairy story.

Deidre—still in her general secretary attire—came out from behind the door, waving an arm up and down, showing off Duquesne from out of her line of vision, "May I present to you, The Queen of Spades?"

Alcana somehow managed to still grin as he whistled lowly, Sanchez bringing a hand up to cover his mouth, eyes traveling over the smaller detective's shapely figure. Both completely ignored the wrathful look directed at both of them as Duquesne moved from the doorway and started toward the elevator, cursing under her breath and trying to surpass the urge to shiver when the boiling heat from the vents in the opposing hallway blew her way and traced over her very visible backline, "Hurry up, Gordon's waiting for is. And pick up your jaw, Alcana!"

The ginger haired man stuffed his hands in his coat pockets and continued to leer as Duquesne practically punch her hand through the elevator button, following after her at a sturdy gate. Sanchez stood and looked at Gordon's little blonde secretary a moment, Deidre herself giving Alcana a disapproving glare as she remained in the locker room doorway.

"Aren't you coming up?" The basketball player sized detective asked, crossing his arms and ignoring the high pitched dinging of the bell inside of the elevator as it took off with two of his generally, and only by association, partners.

A little psyched out by Sanchez saying anything to her—he had only ever spoken to her to get more coffee or a data-pad or (this being a onetime only type thing) flowers and condoms for one of his various dates—outside of the office, Deidre blinked her big sapphire eyes at him and just stood there for a moment.

When she finally spoke up, it was with the minor shift in her character that had been happening those last few weeks, i.e. her growing a spine and a more developed personality than that of a shaky rabbit, "Well, I was going to as soon as I got my costume on. The Commissioner insisted I be involved in the party for at least an hour, have a good time, and all that. It will just…it will take a while to get it on and I might be a while."

Sanchez continued to rest his back against the wall, though he did draw his leg up and pressed his foot at an angle, crossing his arms like the smug smart-ass Deidre had called him earlier.

"I've got time. No sense in you being late to the party if you're not at least fashionably late."

She raised a sleek blonde brow at the man, eyes checking out his costume, "And you think you're fashionable?"

A smug smile was all that greeted her as he pressed most of his weight into the wall even more.

She rolled her eyes and slammed the locker room door.

* * *

_**11:04 pm-**_

"So, I hear from a little bird that you finally got someone to do your bidding that hasn't had a heart attack or quit from shot nerves."

The entire mouthful of pumpkin punch in her throat went down with a vapid hot feeling that came with the level of her feeling of nice, party oriented joy flying out the window and dropping like a frozen bucket off of a twelve story building. Barbara had really hoped that Baby Bullock would actually refrain from telling Daddy Bullock about her ward, but some hopes aren't meant to flourish.

Filling her cup with more punch, the current Commissioner smiled in a very fake manner at Harvey, Renee in her peripheral talking with the stunning Duquesne and the still gawking Alcana and the also lustily looking Ray—Sherlock Holmes and Watson checking out the Queen of Spades from the Alice books (a fairy tale dream come true).

"Why yes, Harvey," the boss lady answered, turning her head to see that her husband was talking with the scum sucking trolls in IAB, "I have gotten an assistant. A rather fine lady that tolerates my four "children" with their whining and bad tempers; who puts up with me and my yelling and controlling issues. Ray did tell you that she bakes, right? A wonderful bonus."

The much, much, much older (former) detective gave her a look and simultaneously stuffed three appetizer sized cream puffs in his mouth before talking with his mouth full, "Yeah, he did mention that, and that is great, but…How much are you paying her?"

Barbara snorted at that, taking up a little truffle thing, took a bite and swallowed before answering the admittedly very fair question, "The same as the last one that took off crying her eyes out after your son graciously yelled at her about the beauties of the Yankees and her own stupidity…or something like that."

"So, you're paying her barely more than slave labor and she's still here?"

Sometimes Barbara forgot why her father kept on the walking unmade bed, but sometimes he gave her that sly look he was presently her at that moment and then she recalled the reason. He might be a jerk and a slob, but he knew when something didn't smell right. A very good reason why she would be screwed if he grilled her on exactly how she came about possessing her little blonde. Lying rarely worked on Harvey and when it did, the results were short lived and a pain in the ass when the truth came out.

So, quite frankly, Babs was pleased when she spotted Sanchez coming up from the exit to the stairs—looking a little winded considering there were, like, thirty steps for each flight—with Deidre on his arm.

"You can ask her why yourself, Harvey," Barbara smiled, spinning him around toward the door and pointed him in the direction of the annoyed looking beanstalk of a man and the little blonde holding his arm half-heartedly, "And meet her, as well."

Silently, Barbara did a little victory dance in her head when she saw that Harvey's eyes didn't widen or wither into slits that were definitive signs of his thinking Deidre had a familiar face, or eye color, height or hair color. He did not draw his hand to his belt where she knew he kept his semi-automatic or start screaming about cooky little hench wenches, and after she was done squealing in her head, she sent a little prayer up that he never would make a connection.

Ray and Duquesne stopped Deidre and Sanchez in their approach towards Barbara to comment on Deidre's outfit. She looked like Jane Austen sans the chocolate hair; with a dark purple Regency dress that had a velvety and gothic red sash around her middle as well as matching elbow length gloves, her hair was done up with clear sequins crossing to keep her hair in place and she looked…oh, damn, she looked older.

The idiotic grin that appeared on her men's (and Harvey's, damnit) faces at the sight of her made Barbara want to set off a bomb and quietly plot to never assign her to be a part of the Halloween (or any costumed event) parties in the future. Next time, Batman could patrol during the day and the little Quinn could work the night.


	53. Deceiving Looks

Ah, I seem to be adding more players to the game and am finding it difficult to keep up with my own mind. But, as it is, that can hardly be a bad thing, if only it forces me to write and up-date more often.

* * *

_-:-  
You are confusing stubbornness for strength, my dear…and the people will not like you for it.  
-The Young Victoria._

* * *

**Deceiving Looks-:-**

Walking down the cold stone hallways that both are and are not at all like the first Arkham—the one she really missed because it was not so confined and resentful and the patients may have gotten out occasionally to wreak havoc, but when they came back they actually tended to behave, but in the place she stood in now, looking out of a chicken-wired, bar crossed window it just felt even more maddening and stifling—Joan Leland in her really very shapely figure for a woman of seventy-nine, looked over the file she had of the newest patient that (_surprise_ _of_ _surprises_) the staff that worked in New Arkham could not handle beyond leaving her in her cell (_cage_) and feeding her every day. Dr. Peyton Riley had called up the retired therapist when it quickly became apparent that…Dee Dee—_that was all the detectives could get out of her when she was confined to the station and questioned for a real name; joy_—was simply amused by the staff and would offer up no real session at all.

Dr. Riley figured that since Leland had treated all of the first (possibly most _honorable_ _**and**_ _dangerous_) Rogues Gallery, including the Joker and Harley Quinn, Joan would be able to get something out of the teenage—_probably teenage, as far as the medical examiner could tell from the X-Rays and Kat scans they had taken of the girl when she entered the system under a still unknown name because as sure as they were standing nobody had actually laid hands on her_—Queen of the Rogues. Probable and most likely, if Joan really did get her to actually speak, Dr. Riley and all the rest would make Joan's working with the girl more permanent. Dr. Leland didn't want to deal with another chalk skinned psychopath so late in her life, but…she had a feeling that there was no other choice and the part of her that still cared for all living things couldn't let her walk away.

Coming to the end of the hallway that lead to the staircase used by the staff to walk down to the cold basement that housed the newest Rogues—Blight, Spellbinder, Inque and such—she keyed in the code for the little electronic pad housed in a hutch of a post beside the door and was swiftly buzzed in once her code registered. It took her a try and a pull and a straining of muscles in her arms she rarely used in the last couple years since her great nephew had become a teen and so on, but the door opened and she was walking down the stairs, dust skittering under her dress for each step downward.

'_Sort of feels like __**Silence of the Lambs**__,_' Joan thought in silent amusement, buttoning the top button of her doctor's jacket as the chill of the shadows moved over her and she found the beginning of the cells, lined up and showing the patients across from one other patient each (just like Old Arkham, she recalled, so they wouldn't feel isolated and get even more violent or try and hurt themselves) with special glass doors that technically weren't glass, but she didn't bother to find out the real name of the see-through solid.

There was one more gate she had to pass through, all titanium bars, electric internal wiring and a fingerprint/retinal scanning/voice recognizing software analysis lock to let only authorized personnel through. She set the data-pad down a moment and allowed the locks to recognize her, saying in a slight robotic voice meant to mimic a woman from Brooklyn, "**Recognized: Leland, Joan. Please enter."**

She picked up the pad quickly and walked through the opening the bars and security allowed.

It was oddly warm once she entered into the lions' housing area, but she soon found why when she trotted along the first cell, housing the acrid green and deceitful black glowing Blight, reading a data-pad of his own with a specialized glove so he wouldn't melt anything. He didn't even look up as the small woman moved swiftly by, but that wasn't so surprising as she recalled that he had once been Derek Powers and probably had a superiority complex the size of a small planet.

She then slid by Mad Stan—odd that he was allowed a small dog in maximum security, but Dr. Riley said it kept him under control, so it made sense—and that J-Man she'd seen on the news. Stan seemed nice enough, probably drugged up with the way he was looking with glassy eyes at the brunette across from him, but the makeup-less sex toy of Joker's Daughter was frowning spectacularly at the bigger man; his arms and legs were crossed and he looked even more like a teenager that she knew he was, smoking a just-lit cigarette. His dark eyes followed her carefully as Joan continued onwards, looking over a couple more people in the cells, but at least he didn't yell at her.

The last two cells before the last one on the right were empty completely, save for the highly offensive smells of bleach and cleaning detergents still clinging to the empty roll-out mattresses that occupied the bolted down bed frames. A chair was sitting innocently in the middle of the floor in front of the last—and farthest away from the security door for a good reason, she supposed—cell.

She came into the light shining out of the glass of the cell and found within the confined space was the young woman she had been reading about. Joan stiffened on the inside, but didn't at all show it on the outside as her dark eyes met the face of a beautiful woman Joan hadn't seen in over forty years with the coloring and obvious mania of a man she hadn't seen in that exact amount of time as well.

"Hello there, Dr. Leland."

If Joan was surprised that the little creature knew her name, she didn't show it at all and just sat down, pad in her lap and a determination she hadn't felt in a good long while coursing through her to channel out the mild fear building in the pit of her gut at the smile directed at her.

"Hello, Miss Dee Dee," Joan greeted back, formal but not as unkind as she had hoped she could sound.

The patient-woman-creature-doppelganger lay with her stomach flush against the bed and spread of it, legs out behind her with one ankle hooked across the other, wearing the simple white suit that all the other high priority inmates were to wear, especially when allowed out during group and such. Her arms were tucked under her a little like a pet cat, fingers painted a kind of dizzying blue with angry maroon splotches here and there tapping against the sides of her breasts—perhaps to make Leland uncomfortable?—in a one, two, three form a person could imagine against piano keys. Limp green tendrils that were her hair were bound up into a loose tail and made her look like a teenager, indeed.

"Dr. Riley tells me that you haven't responded to any of the staff's inquiries and have outright refused to properly answer any questions," the elder woman started, pad lighting up and showing off what little Riley could get out of the girl; not a whole lot and this, Joker's Daughter seemed to know as she didn't even bother changing position in her neck, eyes or the rest of her to peek over Joan's hands.

"Oh, so she called up a pro? That's good," the girl answered back, that sickening little smile making Joan's skin want to peel away from her sinew and bones, wad up into one of those links made for sausages and be used to strangle the girl with, "Maybe you can get them to give me some pencils and paper. It's terribly boring in here, and they seem to think I'd actually try and hurt myself or someone else."

"Would you try and do that?"

"Not really," she chuckled, clucking her tongue on the roof of her mouth and brining one hand back to grip onto one of her tendrils and weave it along and between her white-white-white fingers just enough that Joan could make out the pretty blue veins trying to show off with the movement of her tendons and flesh, "At least, not when I'm feeling down. On Sundays I like to paint. Are you going to write that in that pretty little data-pad?"

Joan took out her digital pen but only folded it into the curve of her fingers and palm, not moving it about, "Should I?"

Joker's Daughter smiled, "You might as well. Everyone else is going to find out that I am very much sedate on Sundays, so you might as well write it down before they do and put in instructions on what to do so I don't knock someone's head in just so I can see some colors on these ugly walls."

"I thought you said you weren't violent like that?"

Here the girl tilted her head as far back as she could, hands and arms folding out like the chairs of a fold-out table and Joan could hear the bones in her back pop just before she hoped off the bed and her feet tapped on the floor, hands snapping and making little clips like in the Blues night clubs Dr. Leland used to go to when she was much younger and less jaded a genius of a doctor. It was frightening how similar she was to the man Joan often didn't spend a day not thinking about in some way or another before pushing out of her head to get on with her life.

"I said 'Not really', Dr. Leland," she corrected, her voice showing inflections of a Queens accent and made a bit of acid rise in Joan's throat, "I'm a female with psychopathic tendencies who prefers love…no, not love; more like sex to a slap in the face. But on Sundays, it would be better for me to have something like chalk or a pencil in my hand, rather than nothing but my words and annoyance at anyone that might try to come and see me."

"What is so important about Sundays, miss… Is there something I can call you besides Dee Dee? That seems a bit juvenile, even if you are obviously a little young to be here."

The girl with green hair and a moonlight complexion thought the question over a little before she smirked back at the woman and lay back down on the bed, not looking at Joan, "Tell Miss Doc Riley that if I get my art supplies and get to keep seeing you, maybe I can give you my last name."

Joan frowned and tapped her pen on her pad, not quite annoyed but close, "I'm not even sure that I'll be coming back here, Dee Dee. I'll tell her your request, but if you don't tell me who you are now, I am not so desperate to know as you might think."

Dee Dee—if she wanted to be called that, then fine—raised both hands toward the ceiling of her cell, thumbs hooked so that she could move them in a flapping motion that would be great in the half light with shadows coming in the right direction and distance (it did make the sign of a bat, which didn't surprise the good doctor), a still accent riddled chuckle and answer coming out of her mouth back at the dark skinned lady, "I am someone who has heard about you for a good long time. If you really want to be so formal, how about you call me Miss JD? Easy, yes? If you come back, I'll talk to you; you have history with Arkham in the old days and, though she may have a mob boss for a daddy, Doc Riley doesn't have a clue about anything. She doesn't get the rules, she doesn't get innuendos and she certainly doesn't get any of us."

Joan noticed that a few cells down, the young woman's lover gave a short bark of laughter, obviously eavesdropping, unlike the rest and it put Joan in the mind of fifty years ago when Joker had just shown up and Harley had thrown away so much to be with him, abuser or no. The girl had a point…and Joan didn't really like that.

Joan turned off the data-pad and got off of the chair, picking it up by its back and moving it to settle against the wall. She hadn't come down into the bowels of hell very happy, but she was going to leave with something to tell Riley and that was something. That, and a sudden renewed vigor in her blood.

"Very well. I'll see you again, my fine lady."


	54. Follow the Yellow Brick Road

Let me just say this: I remember one of my reviewers suggesting Conner/Deidre as a pairing. It's never going to happen, but just to make them happy I did write the two of them in a setting together. I have nothing against the suggestion; it was interesting if nothing else, but the first thought that popped into my head at the suggestion was "What if I had to write a sex scene at some point?" and I gagged a little. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Conner, he's very good to pair up if the people are _Tim or Cassie_, and age barriers have never bothered me (or race, or gender, or specie), but… Well, let me put it another way. Would anyone reading this ever, voluntarily, read a fic where Harley and Superman hooked up? Anyone? …Now imagine Conner and Deidre.

Quinns don't hook up with Blue Boy Scouts. Boy Scouts hook up with Bats, or Amazons, or other JLU members. I'm pretty sure one of them would eat each other's soul. Smallville does not mix willingly with Arkham.

…Wow. A very mellow tirade. Where's my medication…

* * *

_-:-  
Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.  
-Marie Curie._

* * *

_**Follow the Yellow Brick Road-:-**_

"Seriously, how long has she been out there attempting to Death Glare the roosters into the grave?"

"Since they started up at six this morning."

Conner Kent scratched the back of his head in submission at Tim's blunt reply.

Two weeks since the incident with All Soul's day and finding out who Harley Quinn's killer was—her slightly older granddaughter, no matter how much her other, younger granddaughter didn't want to believe it—had left Bruce with not much of an alternative than to send the youngest Quinn to the only place a Bat could think to send their children (legally adopted, or fostered or no) when they were angsting around the cave. Or, in Deidre's case, not eating and crying all night, missing work with Barbara; stuff like normal depressed people, not like Jason after he rose from the dead and started killing criminals.

Though, if she had started more violent actions, she still would have been sent by Bruce and Barbara to the Kent farm.

It had only been three days, and Conner was trying to treat her like Clark told him to, along with Tim when he came over the day before and Lois had harped over the phone: act like a gentleman around her and don't say anything about her family. Which would be a lot easier if he knew anything—anything—about her, other than what Baby Bat told him about her over the phone and what he overheard from members of the Justice League.

She worked for the cops (yes, he will admit that he laughed at the irony), she baked practical Manna from Heaven when she was super stressed and was allowed in the kitchen, she couldn't wear much else than black or red, unless she wanted people to notice drops of blood that leaked from various injuries she got crime fighting and, out on the farm where Conner was the only one looking after her (save Tim, thank Rao) because Clark and Lois were in Metropolis for some big thing at the Daily Planet, Conner discovered that she hated the roosters and couldn't seem to remember to call them roosters (not chickens) when she woke up at the first sounds they made in the morning. She had chased the biggest grey one around the farm for an hour screaming profanities at it the first morning she was there.

"Tell me again why I'm taking care of a Quinn?" Conner asked, taking the cup of coffee—strong, with three sugars—Tim offered as the communications expert made bacon, eggs, pancakes and French toast for the three of them. Krypto was not begging at the salt'n'pepper haired man's feet on account of the super dog being busy watching the strange blonde woman from the porch as she sprinted after the dark brown rooster screaming, "If I get my hands on your scrawny neck, your hen had better start looking for another hubby, you little-!"

"Bruce seems to think the farm is magic and when she goes back to Gotham she'll be less inclined to start crying at midnight for no reason in the Cave or during training with the League when Rex opens his mouth about Harley," Tim supplied readily, not really flinching as some bacon grease skimmed his knuckles.

"Sarcasm noted, but again: Why me?" Conner emphasized, pointing his thumb at his own face and cringing at the sound of Krypto joining in on the chasing of the oversized birds, "Couldn't he have waited until Clark got back?"

Tim shrugged, nonchalant as ever, "You've only met her twice. Once was when they brought her up to be interviewed for the League—when she wanted to run in the opposite direction when she saw you—and when she was on monitor duty and assigned you to go with Rex to the Omega quadrant for that thing with the Kundians."

"…And that makes me qualified, because?"

"I never said it made you qualified," Tim corrected, handing him a plate of chocolate chip pancakes and French toast, "Bruce just seems to be making a point in you getting to know her through forced observation of living together for a while. Remember when he sent Damian here with just you and Chris? It was a pain in the ass for you, but when the little monster got back he was less irritable and was willing to work more with Chris in the Titans."

"Can I put in a word here?" Conner begged, desperate and stabbing the center of his pancake like it was someone's stomach.

"Okay."

"Every time Bruce sent someone here, they were boys," here Conner emphasized the gender by pointing a finger in the air and weaving in around to make designs only he could see in his head, "Never Cass or Steph or even Babs. All boys and all Bats. She has stated, repeatedly that she is not a Bat, she just works for the Bats. I wasn't stupid enough to call her a Joker like Rex, but my point remains valid. I have no idea how to handle her. She's a girl! Help me, tell me what to do!"

Tim, for his part, bit the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning, or worse, laughing at the now hyperventilating superhero.

"You haven't done anything wrong yet. Just…be nice to her; she'll respond to that. Ask her questions, let her ask you questions. She's not bad; you have to know that by now. She's just a little depressed and needs a helping hand."

Conner grumbled some Kryptonian gibberish under his breath and brought the food up to his mouth, stabbing his fork into the pancakes just shy of cracking the plate underneath.

"This would be so much easier to deal with if Kara were still here."

* * *

Observing the relatively nice smelling Blonde Creature—the relative being in the fact that he could smell her rather chemically tampered blood from fifty feet away and it only got worse the closer he stood near her—as she continued to chase after the noisy birds his masters kept around for screaming and to get the lady birds to lay their eggs, Krypto sat placidly just outside the hen house, tilting his head as the Blonde Creature was inside the hen house. From what he could catch, the hens were not pleased with her being in their nest area and the Creature was….stuck.

Aside from the way the Creature seemed to respond to the squawking birds every morning she had been on the farm, Krypto noted that she and the Masters seemed to get well enough along. He wasn't exactly sure why she was here—he knew she didn't want to be; after all, he had found her sneaking out of the window of the bedroom she was staying in for the time being, at all hours of the night, only to wander around the cornfield and stop just shy of the gate, always muttering until he found her, allowed her to get him a pat on the head (which was so _nice_) and then coaxed back into the house—but Ace had given him a stern look when he and his own much darker Masters left; so the white wonder dog was determined to make sure she was safe.

That fact that she made him special dog food that even the Master enjoyed (granted, by accident as it was just sitting in a the skillet she had left on the stove when she had gone back outside to get more eggs from the hens and the Master had tasted three mouthfuls before she had told the Master that it was for Krypto; whereupon the Master had spat it out and gargled with soda) helped with that a lot.

A wiry arm poked out from the hole that served as the entrance to the big wooden nest and Krypto titled his head as the lady made a plaintive noise not unlike a whine as one of the roosters that had not been herded into the henhouse padded up the ramp and pecked one of the Blonde Creature's fingers. A thump was heard and the hand retracted.

The rooster walked into the hut and Krypto went to go and get the Master and his friend.


	55. Walking in Dreamland

Mm, I found myself reading the Sandman books and had to give homage to Neil Gaiman for his cleverness. He really is good… And don't worry, none of the newly presented characters are OC's; they're just lifted from the Sandman books. Oh, and this chapter is dedicated to HyperionTheWatcher, for adding this fic to favorites. Yay!

* * *

_-:-  
You think that I have saved you, but the truth is your need conjured me here.  
-Kissing the Witch: The Bird._

* * *

**Walking in Dreamland-:-**

Among the many people wandering about the streets of England on their ways to say, work, school, play, a quiet screw in a stairwell even, there was a man that didn't look to be more than thirty with sandy colored hair and light brown eyes that was really in his seven hundredth year and on his way to an appointment he had kept for that exact amount of time for every century that moved by with him not aging a day.

This century, Robert Gadling—yes, that was his name, though most often of late he had rather preferred to be called simply Bob among the locals so as to seem less threatening and therefore overlooked and forgotten by the time he had to move again in the next twenty years or so—had to find a place to have a drink with another immortal (actually, he was pretty sure by this point in his life that the other was some sort of god or entity) near the usual place they'd had. Couldn't be the same place as the last time they'd met in the, oh it was the 50's or 60's, seeing as the place had burnt down due to a grease fire and a large apartment complex had been put up.

Turning another corner around the building where once stood a diner/restaurant/gathering house for the poet Shakespeare, Robert was pleased to find a small café and, not bothering to look at the menu, sat down at one of the smaller tables farther from other people. All he had to do now was wait for his pale skinned, ebony black haired friend.

Today, and actually, this year, his wardrobe consisted of simple blue jeans—how wonderfully simple they were to wear!—well fitting to his skinny demeanor, a black shirt and tweed coat with black loafers on his feet. Women liked him enough, but he paid little attention to that at all.

Absently, he picked up the small, plain scripted menu held between the metal curves that made up the salt and pepper holder and looked to order something for both him and his friend.

"Yellow Cinnamon tea…Blue Jasmine coffee…is there anything here that doesn't put such an emphasis on coloring?" Robert mumbled to himself, brows narrowing in mild annoyance as the tall brunette waitress with frizzy hair walked by his table, apparently giving him more time to decide.

Like narrow and liquid fingers made from carbon monoxide and recycled oxygen, the wind suddenly lit up around him and his table, causing the ancient man to drop the menu flat on the table to brush his bangs out of his hair, blinking as some of the pepper that had been dropped upon the surface of the ground by the last customer also fluttered about and pieced into the crest of both his eyes, temporarily blinding him. It was a strange wind, warm, and he almost could swear he heard something like laughter either far, far away, or deep in his head.

Wiping his eyes again, Robert was rather startled to see a red and white envelope holding his menu open and covering all of the rest on the text other than the words _'Mini Hershey Pie with the choice of either Gray or Darjeeling tea for a side dish.' _The envelope had the name Circe printed in bold black script and a little yellow sticky note attached to…him?

Curious and not a bit shy—he had fought and lived through many, many wars, after all—Robert picked the yellow sticky from the royal colored envelope and read it in good humor.

'_Mister Robert Gadling, if you are indeed meeting with Morpheus, God of The Dreaming, today, it would be much appreciated if you went with him to deliver this note to the goddess Circe. I think he'd take you along, but even if he does not, I'd appreciate the favor. Sincerely, Harley Quinn.'_

As Robert finished reading the playful writing, the yellow sticky, before his eyes and almost giving him a shock, split itself in two—one still with the writing he had read and the other in a language with the only words he could understand being Morpheus and Circe—and a thick black shadow passed and settled over him like a shroud.

"Hm, you're looking healthier than the last time."

The voice that he knew so well—a sort of combination of that actor Anthony Hopkins and a proper British gentleman—from all of his time on Earth, caused his expression to instantly change from one of mild shock to good humored all in the blink of the human eye. And looking up, Robert's demeanor changed to something even better.

It was indeed his friend that had found him, though his hair and dress were a little different from the last time. Longer tresses of black hair were tied up into a braid that dangled to his waist with the front and top still shocked out like the god had stuck his hand into a socket and his hair hadn't come out of the surprise; dressed in a simple black button-up shirt, white jeans not unlike Robert's and boots with steel lining the bottom. If Robert hadn't known him, he'd have thought the god of dreaming a simple teenager that hung out with other teenagers about Robert's current apartment that had a nasty habit of spray painting the abandoned lots three streets over.

"I hope so," Robert replied, waving over the waitress to order the outlined text on the menu that the envelope had pointed out, "I have been doing a bit more for others to make up for that mess in the slave trade. Working with doctors and scientists in the third world countries has left me with a bit more of a better understanding of the world than the last time we saw each other and AIDS was just getting recognized."

Morpheus gave the man a sort of cross of smirk and mirth and something that assimilates perfectly to facial configuration to other humans but doesn't always work with the immortal as their own emotions are not that difficult to read, "So, another hundred years for you?"

"Has that ever changed?"

"I suppose not," Morpheus shrugged, looking at the now green sticky note in the other's hand, "Is that for me?"

Robert handed the other the green note, the waitress bringing in their food and drink and leaving with her eyes set on Morpheus a little too long, "I guess, though it wasn't like that before you got here. Actually, none of these were here when I sat down, either. Maybe that Jason Blood's sent a ghost to pester me like he threatened the last time I ran into him when he was that…demon thing."

"Etrigan," the lighter skinned man said, a the lines and crevices that Robert always noticed circling in the lining of the god's eyes circling and curdling as Morpheus finished the note and looked to the red and white envelope with Circe's name on it. He crushed the green sticky in his first and when his first returned into that of a palm, all that was left were ashes that, when Morpheus tilted his hand, blew away down the street, his other hand reaching for the envelope.

"You don't know where that letter came from?"

"Nope," Robert said, handing Morpheus the letter as he swallowed the pie piece in his mouth and took a small sip from his Darjeeling, "Do you?"

"A ghost," Morpheus said, not needing to explain much more than that, "Expecting me to be a delivery man for that whining lump of misery that's been staying with Hephaestus. What cheek."

"Are you going to deliver it?"

Morpheus gave a mild frown, using both hands to spin the letter, the ink upon it sparkling red like blood in the moon with the motion. Robert could smell something like smoke every time Morpheus moved the envelope a certain way.

"I suppose I have to," the dream god answered, swallowing his drink like it was less than the amount in a tequila shot and standing up, but looking over Robert expectantly, "And you're coming as well, I suppose."

Robert paid the amount for the drinks and meal and followed after the brunette. Nobody saw them vanished in a sweep of fog and sand.

* * *

"Well, at least you're not Ares."

Stumbling into what feels like a massive room made only of rock, metal and fire, Robert could touch with his mind every part of him that re-emerged and reconstituted after that travel that felt like it happened over a period of ten years, rather than the twenty seconds it took for Morpheus to find the direct route that would lead him to Circe. Robert thought, really, perhaps there was a reason that Morpheus had to actually knock on the door of what looked like a misshapen, slightly stronger version of the Hunchback of Notre Dame; the teenaged looking brunette did not look pleased.

Morpheus allowed a deep frown to mar his face at the almost knowing smile that quirked the beginnings and tail ends of Hephaestus's lips, the dream god's hand coming up to Robert's shoulder to steady him and draw him in as Morpheus asked the only other god he knew that cared all that much about other gods (except, lately, his wife), "I have a message for Circe. I can feel she's down in your dwelling somewhere. May we come in, Hephaestus?"

The god with the hunched back looked from Morpheus to Robert and, much to their chagrin, pointed at the human, "Who may I ask?"

"Sir Robert Gadling," Morpheus presented, walking into Hephaestus's work room and pulling Robert along with him uncaringly, only to bring them standing in the center of what seemed a never-ending cave, with work tables scattered everywhere—different objects and subjects on each—with a massive fire built into the central area (almost as if it were the middle candle on a menorah). Some mirrors shaped differently and hung differently were situated about and Robert looked over them a little as Hephaestus followed them, limping, a large and word cloth swathing from one of his hands to another in an attempt to remove the black stains of grease from his skin.

The place was both beautiful and daunting, in Robert's opinion and, without his really thinking about it, he started to fiddle with his hands as the gods had words.

Still, his eyes were on the fine looking mirrors. One in particular caught his eye and he neared it…only to almost bowl over backwards in even more shock of the day with a swift movement and change of what the mirror possessed actually making the old Englishman squeak in the back of his throat.

A woman was looking back at him where his reflection resided not a moment ago. A beautiful woman that, two centuries ago, might have set his blood boiling with lust at the look of her foreign eyes and strange hair and that sort of cleverness that resides in the eyes, but, again, he was not interested in such things anymore.

She spoke up in an accent not unlike what many believed Dracula might sound like, "Hello, I've never met you before."

"Uh, I-I'm Robert, a friend of Morpheus," the Englishman stuttered, jutting his thumb at the Dream Lord over his shoulder and lightly flinching, unpleasantly, as said god started speaking in not-quite-Greek with the hunchback as Hephaestus removed a red hot sword from the center of the fire, dunked it into a vat of something silver and in liquid form and pulled it out, only to start hammering at it. The woman in the mirror looked mildly amused by that at Morpheus looked over at her, glared, and then went back to yelling at Hephaestus.

"Is that letter in his hand for Hephaestus?"

"N-No. It's for some goddess called Circe."

There is something in her eyes that changes at the mention of the goddess and the woman in the mirror shifts around a little like a snake on the desert sands before finally becoming still, clicking her tongue on the roof of her mouth, "Who from?"

Robert couldn't remember and dug for the yellow note in his pocket. Once that was up and in the light, he read the name at the end of the words, at the end of the request, "Harley Quinn."

A flash and a bang and some chitter-chatter of teeth echoes inside the hollow realm that the woman resides in and—instantly, blindingly—she is gone, leaving Robert to stare back at his own reflection again.

"….What is it going to take to have you allow me into that vapid harpy's temporary domain? You're not usually this protective, you cripple."

Robert felt a shiver rake his form and turned back around to find Morpheus leaning one leg against Hephaestus's work table, looking quite ticked off. More than even when Robert had said that the dream god was lonely and thought of the human as a friend. He'd never known Morpheus to use such language, but then, he only got to see the man for short bouts of time between centuries.

Sparks jettisoned off of the sword each time the lumbering god brought down his hammer onto the hot metal and answered back over the sound and motion, "Normally, no, I am not. But, she is almost as pathetic as I am these days and I felt moved. She'll come out eventually to look over New York, anyway. Just be patient. And besides, I don't want her to turn me into a frog for knocking on her door when she's singing lounge songs for the third hour straight. How would I ever get my orders done?"

Morpheus made a dark noise in the back of his throat, arm coming up as he was about to counter the words of the hunched god, but stopped as Robert and he, apparently, heard in unison a door deeper into the domain of Hephaestus open.

Light, clipped noises moved their way down long halls for about five minutes, before a sight unlike something Robert had ever seen, though something Morpheus might well had, came into their sights and was followed in the mirrors by the violet haired woman Robert had spoken to.

It was a beast standing before them, not terribly unlike a horse, though quite different as well. Robert noted that, where a horse had hooves, the creature had three long things like claws that scraped the ground; where a long tail of hair should have been there was that which looked like a feathered white monkey before it ended with a spike perhaps made for that of a scorpion and poisonous; ears like a rabbit's at the sides of its head and two horns breaching the skin of its forehead—one straight and spired like a lance and the other curved in a half-moon until it reach the other horn at its top and mushroomed, not meant to harm. Its coloring was a mane of purple, tail white and the rest a sort of cream color with green speckles on the flank.

Its long neck bent for its head to stay looking down, in depression and obvious annoyance at being around anyone at the moment.

"Really, Circe," Hephaestus chuckled from his workplace, "Another look when the molting dragon was bad enough?"

Robert's eyes went wide and shiny when the creature spoke, elegant and on edge at the sight of Morpheus shaking in…something, "I was drunk and woke up like this. I think I'll call it a Manticorne, yes? Maybe I'll show it to my nieces if I ever see both of them together or even one at a time apartment. It would be a nice way to say hi to the one I can't find and a nice greeting to the one that killed Harley, wouldn't it? See, sharp teeth," she emphasized this announcement by opening her jaws and showing off teeth that might have belonged inside the mouth of a bear or rabid lion.

"Goddess Circe," Morpheus finally spoke up, feeling mean at being outright ignored, "I have a message for you from Earth."

"Pushy, pushy Endless," the creature snorted, shifting its body into a mold and then a figure and then another gorgeous woman, not dissimilar to the one that had spoken to Robert and stood in the mirror still, looking for all the world exasperated at the goddess as she was wearing only a pair of pink pajama bottoms and her green bra she hadn't changed out of in a week following the news of Joker's Daughter being brought in to the police by the new Batman and confessing to killing her grandmother—horrid little bitch.

"What message is so important when you interrupt my grieving?"

Morpheus walked up to the woman and handed her the note, eyes like the stars staring disgusted at her wardrobe and slow movements, her entire person smelling not even of Ambrosia but cheap liquor, "A message delivered to a friend of mine by a ghost is important enough. Please have any ghosts of yours lay off of my people and my affairs."

'_Never knew you cared so much,_' Robert thought, a bite of sarcasm in his wording as the goddess took one look at the hand writing and started ripping the envelope open, her free hand swishing over at one of the work tables and bringing over a spare chair for her to sit on. She collapsed onto the surface of hard metal and semi-soft wood and a huge grin lit her face; she didn't even say anything and her clothes shifted and reshaped into a pink woman's pant suit, hair doing itself up in a French bun and makeup and shoes appearing from nothing.

She squealed so loud it echoed the chamber for ten moments as she finished her makeup and slipped on a pair of high heels, grabbing Morpheus without much care for his well being and landed a rather obnoxiously loud kiss to his lips. It lasted a second, just enough to for her to make her point and she spun on her heel and grabbed the mirror the foreign woman was equally standing giddy in, morphing the mirror into something hand-held before disappearing with a '_pop'_.

Robert blinked once, coughed twice into his hand and chanced a look at Morpheus.

The God of Dreaming didn't look very happy, arms crossed and fresh lipstick decorating his pastel lips.

"This isn't the end of our conversation!" Morpheus finally shouted at nobody and nothing but the roof, earning a low row of laughter from Hephaestus and Robert biting his bottom lip to keep from angering Morpheus further.


	56. Wanna Play?

…I have just discovered a new web-comic and come to a new chapter in Twinning in a new direction. And the direction is pointing eastwards toward—wait for it…COMEDY/HINTED ROMANCE. Hate it, but it's there, in my head, and, hey, I'm not getting to anything else, so why not?

Takes place after Zeta gets admitted into the League with the agents following him around as babysitters while he and Ro are kinda in training.

* * *

_-:-  
For God's sake, look after our people.  
-Robert Falcon Scott._

* * *

**Wanna Play?-:-**

"Why is there one of the Jokerz in the training room?"

After constant begging and wheedling and pledging his eternal love and devotion if only Superman would please-please-please-with-whipped-cream-and-cherries-on-top-and-a-naked-bikini-model-drenched-in-the-after-glow accept his brother as the one to supervise Zeta while he was to be trained to fully control any urges he might have to use some of his more "affirmative action" weapons and programs, Barry was super pleased when Superman had indeed granted the request, with the condition that Agent Lee would also have to come along as that was the deal made with Bennett. Two agents were fine with Barry, he could handle that.

However, the burning resentment Jay had previously had on less than an ember before that was now turned up to a red hot coal was proving to be rather difficult to reign in. Lee was nice—in fact, Lee was excellent. If Barry were more into women he might have actually asked her out by the second week of them watching Zeta and Rosalie in the training simulator. His brother obviously had a thing for her, though, and Barry didn't want to tick him off when he was already getting the death glare, the Ice King disposition and the silent treatment.

The fact that they were within three feet of each other and Jay had finally said something to him was supposed to be a good thing. A great thing in fact, but, _no_. Barry couldn't even really get to take that as he actually choked on some of the soda he was drinking and looked in the direction of his brother's finger pointing down to the training room doorway they were standing above watching Zeta and Rosalie work with Batman in an urban warzone simulated environment. Lee wasn't around, having walked off to get some refreshment for herself, having skipped breakfast, and Barry was glad for the change of vast, never-ending silence from his brother….he just wished it wasn't in an explanation.

Barry sniffed a little and coughed out some minor residue of the soda that had tried to escape his nose before answering, "She's, uh, not a Joker. You haven't met her yet?"

Darker eyes than Barry's own narrowed at him and the crimson runner flinched a little, shoulders slouching to make himself look smaller.

"If I'd met her, I wouldn't have asked, little brother. Care to fill me in on why a person who looks like a Joker is in the Metro Tower?"

Barry shuffled his feet around. How to explain the conditions in the League? Hm, well, there was always the route of just blaming it on the Batclan, but that seemed wrong and with the way Jay had been acting, Barry didn't want to lie. In fact, considering when Jay finally did get around to talking to the ragdoll with the metal mallet any and all good descriptions would probably cease to be and Jay would just hate him more so…truth wasn't exactly the better part of valor, but being frank was probably the only way to go as both gingers watched the little lady walk over to the Dark Knight with a look directed at the smaller blonde lassie and the metal man that would put a cougar to shame.

"She's, uh, Batman's part-time partner. Everyone calls her Quinn, but once you get to know her she probably won't mind you calling her Darling. Batman caught her in Kansas delivering a message for her dead grandma to Kal and Lois."

Jay looked to be absorbing this information, short as it was, hands pressed hard and tight to the railing as his dark eyes—darker than his brother by far; a set of garnets compared to a pair of emeralds—looked upon the Raggedy Anne leading Ro over to the far wall to grab a pair of spare black leather gloves, her own white and red gloved hands with contrasting black diamonds still gripping her mallet, but seeming gentle as she sized up Ro's hands for size difference. To Jay, who even from a distance thanks to his training with Aunt Lian could see the mild limp in her left leg and the dark purple bruising under all of that face paint, the young woman didn't really look the type to be wandering around Kansas, but then, the Gotham crowd took all sorts.

As Quinn found a proper pair of gloves and made she they were tight along Ro's skin, she moved along the farthest side of the wall and pulled a baseball bat out, handing it to the younger woman and whispered something in her ear as Batman pulled Zeta over to stand with Ro, pointing at Quinn and then himself and then waved his hands at an electric clock attached to the bell used among those in the League who liked boxing.

"And what, exactly, are the two of them going to do?" Jay finally spoke up again, not looking at Barry as he could hear agent Lee coming back with, what sounded like and if he guessed correctly, three drinks rather than just the one.

As Barry answered, the Asian American woman rejoined them, offering both a steaming hot mug of mocha cappuccino. Below, the Dark Knight and Darling Quinn moved Ro and Zeta towards opposite ends of the urban structured holograms before setting the clock and rushing into the dark shadows, the clocks counting down from ten. Zeta didn't show any sign of hesitation, but when the bell rang out, loud and blunt and deafening to all ears—including those in the gallery—and the synthoid marched in the way Batman had disappeared, Ro hesitated for a few long moments, taking breath and stalk of the baseball bat in hand, before following suit the way Quinn had left, excruciatingly nervous.

"Mm," Jay started, sipping from the mug a little too quickly for the burning of the liquid along his throat lining, "They're teaching them how to properly defend themselves in one of the less desirable or respectable areas of Gotham. Last time they were there Zeta did well enough—save for one of the Jokerz he threw into Bats' car and the bomb attached to him—on his own, but if Batman hadn't shown up she would have suffered an injury or worse by some low level Jokerz. This here is to teach them how to properly go about fighting when there is very little available and no hair of hide of each other."

Both agents looked at the speedster with similar, if not altogether horrified looks. Not a good thing.


	57. Watchies of the Days

I know this is short, but I'm very busy and, though I felt bad for not up-dating this recently, it was all I could come up with.

* * *

_-:-  
Think with your whole body.  
-Taisen Deshimaru._

* * *

**Watchies of the Days-:-**

Eyes of the most deserving and powerful overlook the arena below, calculating in ways that the man had not been when he'd started in the hero business, just a teenager with a positive moral compass.

The chirpy ginger beside him is a poor substitute for Richie, but as the graying blonde man could not make it to Damian's self-built training ground in the private areas of Seattle, Virgil supposed that Colin would have to do to speak with as the movement and interactions of the teens below with the not-letting-up sadist who ran the training.

Persephone and Hades were sitting on both of his feet, their own eyes watching intently as the ginger speedster—heavy weights attached to his legs and arms, each twenty to fifty pounds—was in the midst of trying to get Terry flat on his back and down for the count with a straight right jab. Barry failed in this maneuver and the black cat that was a compliment upon his dark thigh seemed to cringe in time with Virgil taking a sip from his coffee with the peppermint tinge to the creamer Colin had given him. Colin yelled at Terry to be more gentle as he had caught Barry a little off-guard and kicked out the speedster's legs from underneath him so quickly the ginger couldn't catch himself and hit his noise on the ivy-weed strewn grounds. The iron flavor of blood rubbed Barry's tongue the wrong way and he sneezed out a spray of red beneath him as he got up. Impact from the blood on the ground looked like a spray painted peony.

The yellow kitten jumped from Virgil and made for a tree at the far corner of the grounds with a little brown chipmunk at its base; it was eating some long grass.

Virgil certainly wasn't disappointed with choosing this as an activity to observe for his day off. Nothing like blood and violence to enflame the senses.


	58. Deadly Night's Shade

Yay, a chapter for Delia that doesn't actually require my agonizing over every single little thing. Also, Peyton Riley and Johnny Sabatino are not OCs. Just look them up on Wiki for Batman comics and that should be proof enough. This chapter goes out to **Rose Midnight Moonlight Black** for reasons involving her being busy and my urge to make sure she doesn't leave FFdotNet in its entirety.

* * *

_-:-  
She remains on the edges of time, implacable, unhurt, beyond, and one day you'll open your eyes and see her; and after that, the dark.  
-Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things._

* * *

**Deadly Night's Shade-:-**

There is little that Peyton Riley, doctor at Arkham Asylum for the criminally insane, could say about either Dr. Joan Leland, or patient Jane Doe aka Joker's Daughter (or as Leland called her, Miss JD), other than, since Leland came along, she'd be more sedate than terrifying than anything else.

Except on the weekends. In that case, and on the Monday after one of the horrible young woman's episodes, Dr. Riley found herself with a large pile of drawings on her desk to analyze and go over as per Leland's request seeing as she was a guest at the asylum and Riley was the one that was supposed to be working with the queen of the Gotham underworld. It was a fair trade, Peyton couldn't help but think, as she wasn't in danger of being bodily harmed or ordered by Miss JD to be eliminated outside of her apartment if she irritated the pale woman too much. A fine trade.

Sitting down, her bonny blonde Irish hair done up in a loose, low hanging ponytail to prevent people from seeing the bruises along the back of her neck—received when her ex had visited the asylum two days ago—and asking question; Peyton took a small sip from her lukewarm cinnamon sprinkled coffee and set about to organizing the pile of ornate and complicated papers into piles. One pile would be for stuff that might be insightful, one pile for what could turn out to be subconsciously important, and one would a…whatever pile. If it came down to it, she could shove it all off on Leland and offer the old woman a better paycheck for dealing with the clown.

She sighed, breathing in a scent of her own perfume on her chest (a little thing she'd picked up while visiting her father in Knock Glen, Ireland that reminded her of small country taverns and the hearth) and picked up the first picture, trying hard to decipher the rumpled words clustered together through the obvious mania Joker's Daughter had gone through the day or the other before that.

Her voice echoed the phrases aloud, a way to retain the knowledge even after the fact and savored them in a way unexplainable, " '_The Keeper of the locks and liar extraordinaire approached the Black Knight and First Borne Bird who stood with the Scared Crow alongside them, in their custody only before the Keeper stopped before them_…' "

Peyton looked from the words to the picture in and of itself and decided, quite quickly, that it was going into the 'Whatever' pile.

It was really quite beautiful for coming from a complete psychotic with delusions, but it kind of made her skin crawl.

The parchment had originally been white (she could tell because the back of it was white and was originally meant for their ancient copy machine) but now it was mostly a voo-doo doll base tan with other colors that came in noir comics. Two figures that looked vaguely like a vampire and a spliced bird teenager stood back on a long winding staircase from a figure like a Philistine in black, holding up what could have been a quavering human being, had it not been for (his?) spindling four foot, two in long legs and arms like a giant spider, yellow hay for hair under a tattered witch's hat and the face and beak of a black, ginger and yellow bird (maybe crow).

It could mean something, but it was still going into the 'Whatever' pile.

The next picture that she plucked from the middle of the unorganized mass of dead tree in hopes of it going into the insightful, but it looked like it might go into the subconscious pile.

" _'The Prince set about to make a bargain with the foreign king he had captured for a conference,'_" she read aloud once more, eyes roving over one of the men in the picture, a pale skinned demonic looking individual in purple and green silk robes (like that of those worn in the time of Aristocracy and the horse and buggy) grinning at the man leaning away from him in plain black robes in the carriage they were riding in, a pair of women sat in the driver's box in front of them, but Peyton couldn't make out their faces or figures as Joker's Daughter hadn't paid much mind to them; perhaps their presence was little more than after-thought, "'_He made the promise that, for a proper price, he could kill the demigod that the king had despised for such a long time. He could succeed, he had the means. Never mind that he was mortal._'"

'_God, I'm in for the longest night ever_,' Peyton groaned, swallowing a mouthful of her drink and going to rifle through the drawer in her desk closest to her. Within the desk was a cacophony of candy bars, M&Ms, Skittles, three mini-datapads that could fit in her hand that she primarily used to plan her days avoiding her ex-boyfriend, father and family respectively and consecutively, pencils and papers. When she and Johnny were still dating and before he had shown all the classic signs of a narcissist with control issues (i.e. hitting her whenever she "spoke out of turn" or disagreed with him) he had once remarked that it was amazing she didn't have mice using the drawer as a utopia.

She snatched up a packet of deep black chocolate candy bars and slammed the drawer shut at the thought of her ex, annoyed at herself for even bringing up the very thought of him.

She ripped open one of the candy bars and went about plucking another drawing from the pile, this one not a whole lot better than the last in theme, though at least it didn't have writing in every space available (that she could barely read) or any dead bodies like a couple she had taken a peek at when she'd collected them from Leland that morning right after the elderly woman had told Peyton that Joker's Daughter was probably and with little doubt a manic depressive with severe delusion and may have the sort of headaches that could lead to the behavior of a rabid dog confronted with a mountain lion at some point if they didn't find a way to suppress the mania. It was already very bad, Leland had emphasized in all of her notes.

Peyton Riley chewed on her candy bar and rubbed the back of her neck, flinching at the bruises.


	59. Character Traits

Uh, this was fun. I finally get a situation between Warhawk and Terry with righteous and indignant undertones.

* * *

_-:-  
This is his portrait.  
-Fifteen Painted Cards from the Vampire Tarot: The Devil: Neil Gaiman._

* * *

**Character** **Traits**-:-

"Well, I must say that this is interesting."

"What is?"

Kai-Ro ignored Rex's question, refusing to turn around as the much older, much larger and much more muscular League member proceeded to dry himself down from the shower he just took, the little Buddhist in a simple lotus position on one of the shower room benches, absently pressing the '_Next'_ and '_Previous'_buttons on the little camera that Barry had accidently left when he'd changed out of his hero gear and into his college civvies. They were really, really interesting.

"Seriously, baldy," Rex persevered, turning his towel into a cover so he could bend over Kai without getting into his personal space in a way that might get him arrested for lewd acts with a minor, "What are you finding so riveting on an camera that belongs to an airhead?"

Kai-Ro answered the question with the motion of his hands attached to the camera elevating so that the screen was level with Rex's green eyes. The picture that was presently on screen immediately caught the darker man's attention in a most curious fashion that allowed the state of his caution to be lowered. His eyebrows practically disappeared along his hairline and his lips puckered similar to a kind of tropical fish that he had owned as a kid that was all red with little orange and white spots.

"What is _that_?" Was the first thing that came out of Rex's mouth, though the answer was kind of obvious.

"Something Barry's trying for that photography class he's added on incase he doesn't want to end up as a CSI or detective like the rest of the his family."

Kai pressed the '_Enlarge'_ button and thereafter the screen channeled so it was levitating off of the screen and turned so that the image was about as big as a deflated, professional style basketball. It was all in blue colors—from Moon's Dust to Dark Ocean—with little shadows dancing over a teenage brunette wrapped in polyester sheets around his shoulders, around his waist, snaking around horse-muscled ankles. Arms were askew (almost similar to a pair of wings raised taught), hair disheveled and obviously wet; the young man asleep and the title "**New York State Moods**" scrolling along the electronic corner.

"I like it," the Lantern finally spoke up after Rex figured out who the sleeping 'model' of the picture was and thereupon wanted to stab his eyes out and then sever his brainstem for even considering that—had Rex not been the poster boy for the red-blooded, in-your-face straight man—if he played for the other team, he would have quickly tracked Barry down and wring the name of the model out of the speedster, "It's bold, and yet, spiritual."

"It's frickin' McGinnis," Rex corrected, going back to drying his hair over the counter, absently grabbing his shaving cream from his adjacent bag, "Never pegged Barry for the stalker type."

"Really? Because, if I recall—"

"Forget it," Rex waved backwards, squirting out a handful of powder blue foam into the center of his hand before lathering the lot along the ridges of his face, trying to ignore the feel of stubble under his fingers, "What else is in there?"

"Hm, let's see."

A button was pressed and the blue coloring of the image switched to the colors of fall in all of its red, yellow and brown glory, a single figure at the center of the frame, long spindly legs and arms straight up and wound around a set of paper books possibly older than the figure himself. Grey-red hair was flittering around his head from what must have been an Autumn breeze on the cusp of Halloween. A red brick building stood in the background in shadows and beauty.

"Well, I'm not exactly sure who this is," Kai spoke lowly, admiring the whole thing for a moment before moving on. While it was true that he didn't mind looking over pictures of other League members on a camera that belonged to the speedster that gave him a headache on a regular basis, he felt a little more hesitant than the others to wander into the territory of a team member's life that was not known or fully divulged upon. It was polite to just move on.

Rex started to use his razor, carefully maneuvering the classic triple steel slip instrument along the underside of his left cheekbone, thinking maybe today would be the day to start growing the outline for the thin strip goatee that was similar to the one that his father used to have (only smaller and easier to maintain or get rid of). Kai-Ro watched the way Rex began such a thing—thanking his own personal deity Rama Kushna that his was the personal type that didn't get facial hair—for a few moments, but then went back to considering over the next couple of pictures; Barry's brother Jay standing beside his boss and actually looking like he knew better with his eyes wide open and a somber attitude that could only be captured in a candid moment, a bar full of older men that Kai recalled from old files on the Central and Keystone Rogues talking around a pool table with a bright yellow light hanging from the ceiling, and a dark green photo of some rust haired guy on a track field drinking from a bottle of water.

At last, Kai's fingers pressed the right number of buttons and he came to a familiar faces in quiet repose along the ocean front. Lovely aqua hair was fanned out along the golden-white sand, a tiny pink starfish right next to the tips of dainty fingers that, if one looked closely, had little outlines of scales. Black the shade of the darker reaches of space stayed a solid, but transient feel along a well toned back, considerate eyes looking out into the red-peach sky.

"Barda and Merina look good here. Really quite pretty," Kai spoke up, enjoying the little yelp of pain from Rex as he nicked himself in the process of turning his head to look as well.

Cussing under breath, Rex set down his razor and walked to lean over Kai to look over the picture as well, little continents formed from the foam still waiting to be dragged away along with bits and pieces of hair and skin with the sharp edge of the razor. Predatory—always, even though he didn't mean it—eyes looked over the two ladies' figures, remaining on Merina a bit longer than he did with Terry's picture—not that he needed reassurance in his sexual orientation, but every little bit helped—before he reached down swiftly and took the camera from Kai's much smaller hands.

"Hey! What are you-?"

"Getting out my phone; I'm getting a copy of this."

Kai sighed, letting all of his negative emotions out as Warhawk headed back to his bag to fish around for his phone. Moving his legs out of their position, he kept a firm grip on his own towel at the waist and stepped over to the showers, hoping to cleanse not just his body but mind and ignore Rex as the doors to the men's shower room opened up.

The current Gotham Knight walked in, the right foot of his batsuit ripped up and showing some of the red wiring beneath the surface, smelling of oil mixtures and smoke.

"…slagging no-talent, jerkoff, wastoids. Metropolis sucks…"

Kai absently noted the way McGinnis tore off his suit and his scent actually managed to get worse, giving the Lantern plenty of reason to give a little step closer into the spray of water to dilute the scent. Warhawkm unfortunately, was not as subtle in his choice of action or words.

"Julius Priest, McGinnis, what dead carcass did you roll in today?"

Terry chucked off the top of his suit and then proceeded to remove his boxers, tossing everything against the lockers near the benches, growling something foul under his breath as he marched over to the showers and only turned the nozzle for hot water; a hard jet splashing over him like salvation. Both of his hands rested outwards of his head and he enjoyed the burn for a moment before turning his head to Rex.

"…Doesn't that belong to Barry, Emu?"

"He left it behind on his way to college. As it stands, he's got quite the treasury of art photos here. He could probably do this better than any science class."

"Why are you nosing around in his private stuff, is what I meant, and you know it."

Rex ignored the barb his way and got his copy for his phone—immediately setting it as his phone's wallpaper background—and went about shuffling from the next picture to the next picture. These ones, unlike the ones Kai had been looking at, were a little darker than the norm, and couldn't really think that Barry was the one that had taken them, even though it was indeed the speedster's camera.

For three more pictures, Rex pegged the lot to have been taken in Gotham in the hours of late dusk, where nobody would notice a lightning quick flash of red streaking about taking images of, say, a little Asian teenage girl standing along the bank of a lonely balcony looking out at the landscape of high-rise buildings with little more than what a candle would give off for light; a dark skinned, pink-haired young lady in some kind of library (the kind that showed, in the picture at least, plenty of paper books as well as datafiles) standing atop the third from the top step of a ladder, looking for something in particular in half black and ivory for color shading; and finally, a tapestry length haired blonde asleep in a chair, without her shoes and a teacup in hand, balanced on her knee, the sepia coloring doing wonders to highlight the remaining dark brown liquid in the cup.

Those pictures looked over, Rex shut off the camera and set it in his bag, "I'll give it back to him before I get beamed down to Detroit, if that will get the stick out of your ass."

Both of Terry's middle fingers rose from being stiff against the wall tiles, but he didn't say anything as bits and pieces of plaster, Terry's own hair and some of his blood washed into one of the many drains assorted around the floor like the figure of Ursa Major and Minor in the night sky.


	60. Electrifying

Chapter sixty…I think, therefore, I can do this, despite all the little voices in my head telling me it's an awful idea. But, I had to publish something, **RMMB**came back home from limbo!

Also, if anyone bothers to read this, please partake in saving fanfiction by reviewing or PM me for a link to where you can sign up to keep the fascists from deleting this site FOREVER.

* * *

_-:-  
Hello! I must be dying.  
-420 Characters._

* * *

**Electrifying**-:-

Broken glass, the pool table stuck out in the parking lot, the darts and dart board stuck in some bits of the windows that had withstood the pressure of the last seven hours. The only thing left really, of the bar, the wonderful bar that had been a fixture since most of the Central City Rogues had retired, was the frame, some of the paint and the alcohol that had been safely preserved inside the basement with weights and chains and stored in a treasure chest sized crate.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…"

Jonathan Crane stood back from Digger Harkness as the Australian continued to pace around the damaged bar—practically his baby—while his grandson Owen did the same, though with a large black garbage bag, picking up pieces of glass to pass the time and avoid minding Axel as he floated around in Trickster's old hover-shoes in the rafters, trying to pull the limb of an oak tree that had smashed inside the joint out from its obnoxious position, swearing in the Romani and Circus slang James had taught him by accident (much to Piper's chagrin).

"Be calm, Harkness," Jonathan sighed, stepping over one of the dead pigeons that had tried flying into the bar before breaking its neck and smashing to the ground and splattering on impact, "The building inspector isn't going to hold the hurricane against you…unless you caused it…did you borrow the Weather Wand?"

"No, you fucking frigid straw man!"

That got a mild twitch of the eyebrow from Crane, and a snort from Owen as the redhead checked his phone for the seventh time to see how long it would be until the others go there to help fix the place up, but didn't register a comment. The ginger instead took a seat on one of the few bar stools still standing and without plaster littering it.

"And even if he did show up pissed off at the world and looking to gut you and put your head on a spit, he couldn't do more than tell you to get better insurance or something," Crane continued, shifting the seat so his knees got out of the way of a few sticks Axel tore away hitting him, "If you think about it, the worst has already happened."

"How's that?" Digger growled, grabbing one of the black trash bags off the rack his grandson had gotten his from, waving it around a little like a flag before it finally spread out similar to a giant black parachute.

Crane spun in his chair three times, hair breezing a bit, gangly arms spread out and directed at anything and everything in the general area, fingers wriggling, reiterating as brilliantly as if he were splashing rainbows around the room and decorating the words in neon, "**The worst has already happened**." His voice was unpleasantly cheerful.

Picking up some of the darts that hadn't stuck in the window and instead remained contorted on the plaster riddled floor like he wished that he himself was—minus his spine being maligned—Digger only turned his head to sneer a little at the former Arkham inmate and current teacher to impressionable young people who didn't have to see him after hours, "You know, you become even more like a bloody, tosser psycho when you do things like the. Short of saying, '_You've been poisoned' _you couldn't be much creepier."

"Hey," Axel called from above, "Don't be like that, boss-man. At least he didn't actually say _**that**_."

"Thank you, Mr. Walker."

"No problem, Scarey," the blonde teen saluted, the tree finally deciding to move and slide downwards, landing vertically with the few leaves left on it waving and tickling the ceiling. It was just three feet from where Jonathan was sitting.

Crane sniffed disdainfully at the fallen debris and stepped down from the stool, heading for the stairs to the basement, "I'm getting us some beverage while we wait for the others. Want anything specific?"

"Bourbon."

"Just soda for us," Owen called over his shoulder before Axel could call out something he wasn't allowed to drink yet that could get his grandfather canned just for even thinking about giving to minors. The blonde above pouted, but said nothing as he just grit his teeth and tried to loosen the other limbs of wood from the rafters.


	61. Daily Regulars

A little something in contribution to RMMB for coming back. Eventually I'll get tired of saying that, but not today.

* * *

_-:-  
"I wish she hadn't been a secret."  
-In Her Shoes._

* * *

**Daily** **Regulars**-:-

Opium and Afternoon Delight. It is fitting as it spreads in carefully woven paths along the side of the bridge that just barely gives off a shadow into a brimming light that touches a field meant and founded for small children to play; looking so out of place surrounded by strong, ugly architecture and cut glass unfit to allow the spirit to remain.

Poison and Bitter Almonds. It is even more fitting as it encompasses the darkness on the other side of the bridge that gives way to folly, suffering, and foolishness that runs rampant in the streets and every corner of the broken and forgotten—but useful—warehouse districts and hotels filled with conniving thieves, black hearts and traitors.

Sitting on a building not too many blocks away from Melanie's work, and waiting for Jack with enough patience to make a clergyman seem pathetic and corrupt in his ways, Woof stayed in the Lotus position on the very edge of a roof, sharp eyes focused on a point of the city where his patience and expertise in certain aspects paid off. It had been three days since Delia had gotten out of Arkham, but Ghoul and Woof himself had made it clear to themselves and to their lovers that they would not be going back. Their being ignored in the Justice League/Jokerz knock-around had given them a better perspective and they were not going to let it go to waste by going back to Delia; not when Deidre and her new _associates_had given them a chance to get off free. True, they were still a little lost on what exactly to do, but Ghoul had said that he would figure it out and who was Woof to say otherwise, let alone turn him down?

But, the Splicer digressed…It had been three days since the little bitch had freed herself from the hell that was Arkham and was sure to be up to her old tricks soon, but that was not why Woof sat atop the building, looking out on Gotham split down the center before East Side met West Side and minor balance gave way to chaos. No, actually he should be a little grateful to Delia as he sat there and just inhaled the achingly familiars smells he so missed from before things got complicated.

Behind him, sending three large black birds away into the sky in a scattered panic, a smaller clock tower than some of the ones in the shopping district tolled out the hour of seven in the morning and Woof focused his eyes even more carefully on a tiny little coffee shop near the bridge that always opened at that time and always, without fail, expected a visitor no less than two minutes later.

Above his head, crossing in and out through the broken and arched windows of other vacant buildings that had no company inside them other than squatters and miscreant animals, pigeons and crows flittered up and about to eat the early morning gnats and moths that skewered the skyline looking for the light from neon. Two minutes later, patience being on his side for once, Woof spotted who he had been waiting to spot since he sat down.

Speedy and tense, covered in black and grays to hide herself in plain sight, his friend—she was his friend still, he'd promised himself; she'd given him a voice back, even if it wasn't his own and still chaffed at the edges like cotton in a bottle full of pills—walked down the way, avoiding the bridge like it was an umbrella opened inside a house, with a little coffee carrier in her hands, missing the coffee. With her hair let down in ribbons with colors reflective of Copper Breeches, though not so far down that the gold hair could dust the sidewalks, she stepped into the shop just as Woof saw the doors unlock and the sign in the window turn over to 'Open'.

Woof growled pleasantly in the thick of his throat, almost a purr, which fit with the body he occupied—contrary to popular belief, hyenas were more closely blood related to cats, bears, ferrets and nothing even remotely like a dog, despite the drooling—as he reclined upwards from his seated position and dusted off the back of his trousers where his tail would be. If he had one, that is.

"Good to see she's not limping this week, that's something to celebrate…"

"What are you muttering about this morning, dearest?"

Without turning about, body happy, not at all surprised, Woof yawned to the body that settled up beside him and was happy for, completely, the scent of clean laundry, sweat and that tang that follows people around in secret clubs that feature grindcore metal music as his boyfriend landed a lightly scratching kiss to the underside of his jaw, goatee bristling against Woof's fur in battle of black on brunette brown. Woof's lanky arm circled his lover's waist and his other hand accepted the Honey Comb coffee Jack often got him when he tried to follow him wherever he went in the morning.

Woof moved his right foot and kicked out a stone that had been bothering him off of the roof, the rock fumbling in midair, pausing with silence before it hit the building nearest by, "Oh, just thinking aloud about some things."

Jack's darkroom, black room, photo making room colored eyes reached the intended point that Woof had been staring at as far as Jack could tell when he climbed the stairs to the top of the building to find his boyfriend, landing lightly on the window to the opened coffee shop on the light side of the bridge.

"Ah, you found her all the way over there, then? What's she doing?"

Woof shrugged, eyes a little more wide as his friend who was a lady left the shop with five coffees in the carrier and one in her black leather gloved hand that she sipped from tentatively, her own eyes—that they couldn't see, but knew were still the blue that her sister's weren't; pretty and honest—casting over towards the darkened shadows on the other side of the bridge, before she turned back the way she came and disappeared into the subway tunnels two blocks from the little coffee shop.

"…Nothing of importance." Woof grinned, nipping Jack's ear before easing the both of them over to the stairway they took up, to leave back for Melanie's work, get breakfast, plan the day.


	62. Repressive Propaganda

It's getting harder to breed rabbits for this fic. True, it's a fic that's made from one piece to another, but still…

Also: Camber Hartley can be seen in "**Blackout**" getting shot and dragged away by Sanchez, and Marcus Davies can be seen in "**Disappearing** **Inque**" catching Adam and Inque "making out" and walking away, saying "Carry on." Yay for more characters!

* * *

_-:-  
Often, to pass the time on board, the crew  
will catch an albatross, one of those big birds  
which nonchalantly chaperone a ship  
across the bitter fathoms of the sea.  
-The Albatross, by Charles Baudelaire._

* * *

**Repressive Propaganda**-:-

Listening to the sound of Conway from I.A. preaching about actually reading a warrant before it is served when ramming into an entire den populated by pumped up Splicers while his partner Esperanza continued to smoke out the window of the Commissioner's office, was not exactly the worst thing Bullock could be listening to on his lunch hour—short of being out on the firing range and hitting a rabbit—but it wasn't the best, either. The stupid SOB had the worst, most nasally and condescending voice ever to be used to drone on for hours and pick on the son of Harvey Bullock and Ray was really wishing he would give it a rest soon, otherwise he'd miss the opening to even eat something from the vending machine downstairs and Gordon's head would pop off from all of the red fluid rushing to her ears and temple.

Conway, that rigid, but salivated upon toothpick still perched on the edge of his lip, continued on, just as Barbara was about to snap something, "You'd better pray that this isn't a result of taking cues from your father, Bullock, or so help me I will bury you."

"Detective Conway," Gordon finally stood up from her seated position, fists resting atop the desk, solid and unflinching, eyes brazen and enflamed, "That warrant was given and enforced by Myrick on his way into the building, while Detective Bullock as well as Duquesne and Alcana were on the ground following the dog teams to track down the Splicers who got out of the building. If the criminals we arrested get loose on a technicality, then it is the fault of the lawyers who procured the warrants, not my detectives. You cannot simply come in here and smear my men because you need someone to BLAME."

That shut the I.A. detective up, and also caused red to surface to his face in a way that Bullock would like to think he would be able to remember forever and ever and ever, but would accept just remembering long enough to get through with this meeting so he wouldn't break and attempt to slug the bastard right in his face. Though, with the way Esperanza reached out a long arm to press against Conway's shoulder, it almost appeared that Bullock might get the excuse if the bald drone made to do something physical with one of the objects sitting in Barbara's desk. Her paper weight—a glass plaque with a blue rose engraved in it, she had gotten one Christmas from her husband—would make a particularly nice crack if it hit the wall before splintering like the glass on a car front window.

* * *

"Damn, Camber, this is going to get you a lot more luck with the ladies."

Sanchez grinned around the rim of his coffee cup as the fair haired, wire-rim glasses wearing Camber Hartley—freshly back from his seven weeks of leave required to take therapy so he could properly work his left arm again after his officer involved shooting tango with a laser gun—rolled down his sleeve and tried to cover up the blush on his face from his partner Marcus Davies. It was amusing even from fifteen feet away in the bull pen of the unit, and a damn sight better to pay attention to than the two guards standing in front of the Commissioner's door to keep the rest of the unit from interrupting the meeting among the Rat Squad and their reaming of Bullock.

Personally, Sanchez didn't like his partner being in there among two jackasses without the tall officer being in there to help play off being a bad cop (despite that being Bullock's expertise on account of learning the ropes from his father), but Gordon knew what she was doing and had threatened Sanchez—and the rest of her fleet—with foot patrol along the abandoned outlets and city parks if they tried to become part of the debate that was giving her even more grey hair.

"Marcus, please," Camber sighed, picking up one of the data-files he had asked Duquesne to look over before lunch, that the dark lady had left for him to pick up (a system Sanchez figured worked for the both of them, seeing as Camber was completely into Duquesne and knew she didn't really like anybody) with a little sticky note on the side, reading, '_Next time, use the spelling check_.'

The darker, older, larger of the two men chuckled and sat down at the desk that was assigned to him, that he hadn't actually sat down at in the last seven days because of having a case that somehow or another overlapped with some police in Central City and required Davies to do some cross-country travelling; and slunk into his chair to finish typing up the report that he had somehow gotten stuck doing because the detectives from Central City had left the papers for him in the morgue along with the dead body of one of the East Coast Jokerz that the Gotham department was back to dealing with. Sanchez had to give it to the man, enjoying paperwork was a rare form among the officers of Gotham.

Above the tall man's head, Sanchez could hear the echoes of a floor waxer on full blast as well as some music with two women in a duet singing, "…_Kiss me goodbye, I'm defying gravity! And you won't bring me down_…" that Sanchez vaguely thought might be an attempt to cover up Miss Larkin giving loose little shrieks Sanchez assumed were made because the floor waxer weighed a hundred-something pounds more than the blonde and she was trying to keep it from breaking something expensive and damning enough to get her fired if it was ruined.

The happy smile that had grown similar to nightshade vegetables was quickly shut down as the door to Gordon's office was opened and slammed lightly into the Commissioner's office wall, hitting the little circular pad that the door's handle landed in, cradle to grave easy enough. The IA detectives then exited, putting on coats for a dramatic exit all in the MCU had come to expect from the blowhards that often left without the head of their own personal white whales mounted on their shoulders.

"…You should really be more careful, Commissioner," the bald detective, Conway if Sanchez bothered to recall from the recess of his mind, "Too many overturned sentences resulting from slip-ups could not just cost your detectives their jobs, but yours as well."

"I'd thank you for the kind thoughts, if I thought that was what they were," Gordon growled, arms crossed as she leaned on the arch of her door, Bullock behind her and looking less pleased than the Commissioner herself as the two IA representatives paused just below the stairs to the file room, echoes of the floor waxer gone to be replaced with the tapping of very low heals none but the best hearing detectives could hear.

Esperanza made to give a little mock-salute, but as it seemed, time stopped.

Just for a moment, mind, but it was just enough as a little crash was heard when the IA investigators entered into the arch of the stairwell, the creaking of the wooden railing the closed off the drop from floor to upper story alerting Conway to look up. His hand was on the holster to his gun, but if he had only thought to bring to other one before his face.

Time moved forward, just in time for a bucket of soapy grey water to land on his head as if it were a horse-shoe for a ring toss. The dented bucket settled atop his head, the water inside acting as if it were the mouth of a colossal wave, covering his clothing from shoulder to ass in the water, little droplets moving to the floor as he just stood there, totally unsure of what the hell had happened.

"…I-I-I…so…sorry detectives…"

As Conway removed the bucket from his head, a little sponge dropping out of it and onto his nose, then down to the floor, Esperanza looked up to find Gordon's sixteen year old—it might seem a little age-ist to repeat the girl's age every time that he came into the unit, but really, if he didn't remind himself, he probably would have been the victim of a harassment suit months ago when Gordon had brought her in like some puppy—secretary practically wrapped around the banister, one leg jammed against the wood and holding up another (though smaller) bucket that she had, as it appeared, dropped, onto herself, making her front sopping wet, and giving cause for him to—_For the Love of GOD_—avert his eyes back to his partner. The detective coughed twice into his hand and grinned at his partner, leading him out before embarrassment could really sink in, one arm wrapped around Conway's upper torso to lead him towards the downstairs men's room.

"Get better control of your people, Gordon." Was the last thing Esperanza said as they disappeared into the elevator, Conway still coughing the water from his lungs; the wet detecting and partner passing by Alcana and Duquesne with full cups of coffee in hand, wondering at the two IA rats.

When the elevator could be heard making that little ding it gave whenever it moved from one place to another, everyone—save for the blonde picking up her dropped bucket on the floor above and Alcana and Duquesne, who didn't know what the hell had happened—burst into laughter.

A well enough turn out from every other time IA came a-hunting, even if it WAS an accident.


	63. Nothing Much

_A puppy with no name  
Will take me away…  
A puppy with no name  
Will devour me…  
-Strange Curcus._

* * *

**Nothing Much-:-**

There is nothing for Delia to say about staying in the asylum, even if it was for a short time. Three months of talking to the most uninteresting people in the world that couldn't even carry on a conversation without breaking their already fragile psychosis into smaller bits and pieces that she couldn't even piece back together into a pretty picture to look at in her quiet time in her cell.

It was a shame that couldn't have broken out J-Man, but truth be told he was getting rather boring following her around like an overly stimulated mongrel in heat. Maybe a few weeks onto months in that place would make him worth the time he paraded himself around her. She would enjoy being brought-taken-thrust back into the place to find him frantic and underweight with bags under his eyes that showed the devotion that…

Delia hissed to herself and climbed down the marble walls of the cathedral she'd chosen to hide out in because the Bat and her dear sibling would be looking in the older districts and this place was in a little sect of non-drug streets where children could walk to the tiny little private kindergarten with their doting mothers and fathers. She didn't like the place, which was why neither vigilante would find her.

Carefully, the green haired girl—the hair had grown too long in the asylum, and she'd been forced to wash it free of the ringlets and let it go into an almost dead state of being that flattened and dried similar to that of flowers and leaves people press to the inside of books until another time when they open the pages, the leavings fall out and are accidentally stepped on—slithered through the porthole window near the east end of the cathedral where she'd broken the glass. Still in the clothes that she'd worn in Arkham that consisted of drab orange in that well-known style of the jumpsuit, it was a bit of a tight fit through the hole, but when her hands met the attic's floor, she was happy enough that she was at least wearing something that would protect her skin from the dust that sprayed up and folded to her in every way that mattered in the dark.

She landed on her side and then lay on her back to look at the twenty-odd spider webs placed along the rafters. No spiders took residence there, but she could imagine that just her being there was enough to send even those little micro-predators spiriting away someplace less crowded. It wasn't true, but again, it was fun to imagine she was the biggest and the strongest at her mere hundred pounds and five-something feet in size.

She had to think.

She could do that now, it was Friday night-morning…she could think now.

The dust that settled along her arms—the sleeves were rolled up, even if it was a little chilly outside—and it itched horrifically but she didn't mind, not really. Why sweat the small stuff, anyway?


	64. Just the Way It Is

This was inspired a while ago by a long conversation with **RMMB**. It was really the answer to two suggestions in one, and I am grateful.

* * *

_-:-  
The walk ins. Old souls looking for new homes.  
-The X Files._

* * *

**Just the Way It Is-:-**

Low light with little color on the walls bounced around the room as delicately acute hands directed one vial of serum into droplets to be mixed with another. Red colliding and merging with a sort of purple similar to the ooze that can be made when a certain algae is infected in unclean water at hydro-plants along the coastline, creating a little puff of smoke before the whole concoction turned an ugly green and the hands set both the empty vial and the careful, expected-for-greatness vial into the little metal carrier that they were supposed to be put in.

Sitting in seats across from the gray-ish blonde haired chemical genius that barely registered the age of twenty-two, both Bruce Wayne and Barbara Gordon looked appreciatively at the concoction; Bruce still eyeing the green liquid and running over so many calculations in his head that he couldn't manage to speak as Barbara grinned outrageously and stood up to hug the young man that had just shown them the solution to the new strand of Splicer drugs that were making life in the Gotham Police Department (as well as Gotham general) absolutely miserable.

"Dr. Langstrom, you are a genius," the Commissioner grinned beautifully, lifting the rigid looking young man—emphasis on young, despite the graying hair and his impersonal relationship to everyone on the planet, including his parents and sister; even his father, whom he appeared almost a clone of—from his seat in a crushing hug, to show just how grateful she was. He didn't hug back; rather, the young man just patted Barbara on the shoulder before pulling away to straighten his doctor's coat. His problem with germs was showing and Bruce was glad he was old enough to remove the urge to chuckle as he stood up and nodded approvingly towards the anti-social son of Langstrom, Sr.

"Wayne Industries will be sending you the check for this as soon as the patent is in," Bruce stated, right down to business, his own and Aaron's biggest comfort zone. "However, how long will it take for this to be mass-produced for country-wide distribution to hospitals and police departments once the patent is in?"

Aaron straightened his coat a little more, smoothing the ruffles Barbara had made along the grooves of his shoulders, eyes looking at the ceiling as he calculated his response.

"I don't know," he shrugged, somewhat pleasant voice only and always overshadowed by the arrogance he carried around like a crown and a scepter every second since he'd turned eighteen, graduated college and moved to Dakota to take up a job in the scientific department of the Wayne Enterprise building that had been sitting in the city for something in years less than a decade, "Maybe three weeks; a month at the most."

Barbara slipped on her own long brown coat, hissing a little at the thought that she, her detectives, Bruce and the "_**kids"**_would have to deal with the most hyper aggressive Splicers Gotham had ever had for another day, let alone a month.

Aaron did not appreciate Barbara's doubt and said just as much as both of the much older people made to exit the private lab room.

* * *

"…And so in the act of Dana finding out about her in the _worst way humanly possible_, it has lead to Barry dating Jared, one of my _only_ male friends. Whom I've never even thought could, in a billion years, be bi-sexual. I mean, five months ago he was into **you**, for God's sake!"

Max smiled from behind her coffee cup she'd been nursing since they'd been left waiting outside the Wayne building for Mr. Wayne and Babs to come down from seeing the presentation on the drug that could possibly make Terry and Deidre's nights out defending Gotham so much easier. The smile was almost contagious, but Terry held firm to his desperation he'd displayed in his story of three days ago, when Deidre had come looking for him—his pager had been off, he hadn't known, it wasn't his fault…yes it was—at his and Max's school so he could do some paperwork for Mr. Wayne and have that night off to be with his girlfriend. Barry had been with her at the time so they could speed in and speed out in an effort to keep Dana from noticing her and thinking that her boyfriend was doing anything remotely unfaithful.

Needless to say, the story was interesting in the fact that it had all gone down the garbage shoot the second Barry had wandered off to quickly find Terry (instead finding Jared in the locker room and finding himself coming out of the closet in a big way all because Jared had been sweating in wrestling during gym and in nothing but a very short towel and was very interested in the fact that Terry had such an attractive redhead friend out of state all from working for Mr. Wayne) and Nelson Nash had wandered into the corridor Deidre had been hiding in, Chelsea on his arm. _Needless_to say, Max had laughed so hard at the description of the long-haired blonde being chased through the men's locker room by the best friend of Dana as Jared had accepted Barry's phone number and Terry had walked in while in the process of taking his gym shirt off.

"Well, she did warn you about waiting," Max finally managed to speak up, swallowing a mouthful of her sugary delicious coffee. Terry groaned, head almost down around his knees as, yes, he did indeed remember the skittish blonde warning him about the wrath of Dana—hell, the wrath of Chelsea—but he didn't want to think about it. All he wanted right now was an attempt for some advice from his best friend about how to handle Dana not talking to him, Nelson making snide comments every time they passed down the hall, Chelsea sending him voice-mails everyday about betrayal and '_how could he cheat on his girlfriend with a clown?_', Jared being able to go out with Barry (and when had Barry become gay? Overnight?) while still retaining his status of Terry's best guy friend with absolutely no weirdness for some reason, and, (_heartrending cackle echoes in his mind with absolutely nothing blocking it—hahahahahah! __**Fuck**__!) _how to get Deidre to come around and talk to Dana and assure the little lady about the fact that (Terry is pretty sure) the former second hand of the Jokerz has absolutely no romantic inclinations for Terry; she just works for Mr. Wayne's ex-wife.

No such luck with those hopes as the doors to the building opened and both young people stood up from sitting on the red brick stairs as Bruce and Barbara left, looking a little more sour than they had when they'd entered. The scientist behind them said a less than gentle or pleasant or sincere "Good evening" accompanied by "I'll call you both when the patent clears and you can use it for the greater good or whatever" before he shut the doors and both of the elders nodded and walked ahead of Terry and Max. All of their coats were thick, browns or black, or the colors mixed and they fit quietly against the backdrop of white that descended from the Dakota sky down to the pavement and their shoulders and heads and eyelashes.

Terry shoved his personal problems aside and went into that state of being Max noticed he had a habit of residing within whenever Mr. Wayne was around and it pertained to their joint business of protection of Gotham and the world. It would almost be sexy if it wasn't Terry and it didn't make Max giggle when she really thought about it. His deep blue eyes were clear and the new Batman swallowed another swig of his own—plain black—coffee before walking in pace to Bruce's right, curious about this cure Bruce had talked about in the private plane they'd all taken to Dakota that could take all the Splicer problems in Gotham away-away-away.

"So, when will the drug be available?"

Max pinched into the back of Terry's spine at his cavalier attitude, but he barely noticed as Barbara nudged Bruce to actually answer the questions. They had time to answer as they meandered the streets of Dakota before they would reach the bar Static had requested they meet him at to discuss League business and such.

Bruce spoke evenly as they turned a corner, reaching a strip of city streets that contained bars entirely up and down the lanes, all brightly lit with music streaming from giant speakers near the windows, "Aaron thinks we will be out of the woods in a month. But, when he says this, it's usually in an effort to annoy me, his boss, so it will probably be more like thirteen days."

"Isn't it a little dangerous for him to press your buttons?" Max enquired, roving to walk on Barbara's left so she wouldn't be hit in the side by a few of the drunks leaving the other bars, "I mean, you can fire him. You gave him the job, you can take it away."

"Bruce is thinking Aaron might be turning into the next Man-Bat."

The senior Wayne growled and gave a pointed glare at Barbara as his ex-wife accepted Max's offer of a sip of coffee and took that sip quickly before handing it back; much too much sugar for Barbara's tastes. But, as they turned the corner, all that was forgotten as they spotted Virgil in his glaringly bright blue winter coat with Richie in his glaringly green coat standing together outside of the bar that Bruce knew for a fact was currently very popular and owned and managed by Static's former (when he was a hormonal teenager) enemy Hotstreak.

"We'll talk about this later," Bruce answered to Terry's look of possibly getting a new thing to do during the night that didn't involve thinking about his own personal problems with Dana not trusting him and Jared possibly having sex with Barry every time the speedster was in Gotham (a real possibility, seeing as Barry was so jovial whenever Batman saw the damn Flash during working hours) and dealing with Darling Quinn when they all got back to Gotham because they had left her to defend the city for the last two nights and he would doubtlessly need to stitch her up when they got back. Terry would much rather think about something juicy, because he remembered Bruce talking about Dr. Langstrom Sr. being quite a competent chemical genius, even though he was turned a couple times into a giant bat, along with his wife.

But that would wait for later, after he saw if the old man and his old ex drank anything alcoholic.


	65. Dark Clouds, Gray Lining

This chapter takes place exactly before the events of "Follow the Yellow Brick Road", when Deidre gets sent to Kansas. I felt it was important to put this in after my long absence.

* * *

_-:-  
The hair, spun gold, is tight around his finger.  
-The Ghoul and the Spirit, by Rose Midnight Moonlight Black._

* * *

**Dark Clouds, Gray Lining**-:-

Things were getting worse for the little lady Barbara had taken on as her assistant. Every day at work, lately, since the incident with Delia dropping down on the blonde's head that ("_Oh, yes, why should I lie about that when it was so easy? Of course I killed her, little sister_...") her older sister was the killer of their own blood and flesh, Deidre had been more interactive in the department and night work with Terry. This would be deemed a tremendously good thing, except that she was getting darker on the inside, spending less time actually talking, and far more time getting into loud debates if someone said the wrong thing.

Earlier that week, in fact, when Duquesne and Alcana were working on a rape case of a woman married to a cop (who had pressed the charges against said cop she was married to) and I.A. came in to ask Barbara to finesse and take her time with it ("_Come on, the only reason we get married is so we don't have to hear them say 'no'_"), Deidre had been in the room and Barbara had to send her out to get coffee to prevent what would have been a very loud recitation of the 1984 verdict for married women and their rights. Even by the time the little lassie came back, Babs had to tell her to stop grinding her teeth and breathe before her head exploded.

* * *

_He thinks, all the time, day and night, about the first thing he could say to her if they ever met again. Nothing pious or agonizing or anything that would comfort himself, though. He doesn't want to seem that pathetic using this gift of voice she'd given back to him after so long._

_Unfortunately, that left little else to say. All he felt when he thought about seeing her again (teeth marks in little white lines, he knew there would be, under her clothes as the result of his own mouth) was agonized and uncomfortable._

Going shopping that evening for dinner between himself and Jack (_no more takeout, not that evening; it was the first time their apartment would be vacated of a sister with blonde hair that had to work that evening, and a pro-league hacker who was out looking for an apartment twix the two blondes_), Woof let his head point up towards the stars, hands in his jean pockets, jacket around his waist so he didn't become stifled in the heated evening air. The market was slow in the evening, which was perfect for Woof in all of his physical glory; an allowance of time not to be stared at rudely by thoughtless teens and bigot adults.

The open air market was even better.

"Hey, Mister," the owner of the bodega (_an older man who had probably seen a lot in his time, the scent of cheap mint cigars all about him and white curly hair receding_), asked in irate impatience, "What's it gonna be tonight? We're closing soon; I gotta get back across town to the wife."

Woof moved his head back down to the meat he had been considering over, a little crick in his neck sounding off, but not hurting; the small brown paper bag filled with sesame seeded bread and Angel Hair spaghetti seemed heavier in one arm.

"Sorry about that," Woof spoke, delicately polite in his foreign accent, "I was trying to remember what I needed."

It was a lie, but if only to remain polite, the bodega owner acknowledged it for what it was.

"Uh, can I get a pound of the lean ground beef and two of those T-bone steaks, please?"

Old hands, but swift and careful, knowing exactly what they were doing picked at the beef, thumb kneading the lighter colored bits before grapping a ball of it and then tucking it into a clear plastic sack; the eyes of the man focused on the swift work before tying the back off to set on the scale for price weight. Wiping those hands on his apron (_why did all butchers have white aprons; it was ridiculous_), he then tucked the steaks into sheets of white wax paper and put them on the scale as well.

Low, quiet steps sounded behind them, where the entrance to the market was, but neither man took note as the price for the items lit up and offered up a much fairer price than any that could be gotten at a supermarket in the main shopping districts. The owner asked if there was anything else, but Woof turned him down, paid the amount and took his merchandise from the counter.

When he spun on his heal, elated at having the stuff for dinner for him and Jack and their private time, it was something unpleasant in feeling (_he saw a small dog get hit by a car once, the car not even stop-ping; the dog died instantly, but the feeling of fear and being unable to do anything never went away_), when he came face to face with the figure of many of his more depressing nightmares. The figment of most of his guilt (_dressed in a big black and blue plaid button-up shirt, black jeans, shoes he knew for a fact were two sizes too big for her and rightfully belonged to a guy, hair in a messy bun_) looked with doe eyes at him, but didn't run away.

In her hands was a cardboard carrier filled with five full cups of coffee (_many brands that he could smell, even more flavors_), but rather than slamming the carrier and the boiling coffee into his face like he assumed once, if the situation presented itself, she would do; she gave a smile of sincerity. That look was one he missed and his guilt slid to the surface (_foamy purple fungus on the top of pond water; murky and not pleasant to look at, let alone touch_).

"Hey, Woof."

"Hi, Dei."

* * *

"_I think… I might need help_."

Walking down the hall from her own office as she prepared to make her way home to Sam (_her coat didn't seem as heavy as it did earlier that day when she'd walked up to the archives to find all the boxes filled with mentions of Joker moved to the farthest reaching corner of the entire place; hidden behind boxes filled with information of long dead gang members and meaningless drug dealers_), Barbara didn't think about the noticeable dent Deidre had put in her locker earlier that morning. Rather, she thought about being in the women's restroom (_the main lighting basically dead, flickering_) before Deidre got off from her shift and finding the young girl in one of the stalls where Detective Duquesne mentioned she might be (_when Babs wondered aloud on the way to the mini-kitchen about where Deidre was, some files needed copying for I.A.B. detectives that would be in the next morning, the coffee machines needing to be refilled_), crying for another unexplained reason.

Barbara readjusted her glasses onto her nose and tied her scarf around her neck to keep out the cold on the way to getting a taxi (_her own car was in the shop, but it gave her the opportunity to see the decorations the city was putting up for the season, despite that it was going to snow_).

'This is a step,' she thought, carefully avoiding the ice on some of the steps on the way to a side street, 'I just hope Bruce has the proper material to get Clark to help with the rest of the way.'

She would doubtlessly wonder about what, exactly, had caused her to actually cave in for the help (_it couldn't be anything genetic, consider Babs couldn't recall one time that Harley, or Joker, asked anyone for help, with anything at all; so the only other option was something from without—perhaps Terry or Max_), for a couple of days. But until then she could at least be grateful.


	66. Band of Merry Men

Yay, something with the boys that I'm growing to like!

* * *

_-:-  
Our days and nights are crowded with flat characters—people who, like Edgar Marsalla, enter our lives, make a scene, then leave—but it's the scene they make, large or small, that we remember them by, ans by which we define them.  
-With Love and Squalor._

* * *

**Band of Merry Men**-:-

_Central City_:

The arrow is drawn, the bowstring tight and pulsing like a heartbeat under his fingers and as he aims and fires, all seems to be right with the world…if only for the moment.

When the fresh and bitter sound of the arrow hitting the top mannequin's head where a fresh red apple split apart and fell to the ground, Jay West smiled with the ridges of his mouth, eyes unseeing with the red blindfold covering his eyes. In making to reload and take another shot—this time further out into the woods along the borders of Central City he liked to use—he could feel every muscle in his arms, every ripple of tanned skin that served as his gloves, ever cut along his fingers from slivers in the arrows that had been used more times than they really should have.

Above his head, through the canopy of trees where wind met sky, Jay could just hear three large birds flying in the direction of the city (_crows, cawing and bickering amongst themselves, obviously wanting nothing more than to find a dead body to rip open and pick over_) and could smell the rain that had not been reported (_Weather Wizard's son Josh had probably found the wand and decided to take it out for a test run again_) building up in the clouds before they would eventually cave in and douse the nearby world below.

("_You should try and spend more time with your brother."_

_It had been a mistake to walk into the old bar that he used to frequent just to play pool with his friends when he was younger, and Jay knew it the moment he ordered his first alcoholic beverage since he'd turned twenty-one; Owen Mercer turning directly to face him with that annoying all-knowing look he'd had since he'd started helping out his father. Jay West had not wanted to go to the place, but he wanted to see what they had done after the building had been rendered damaged by that tornado._

_He wished the place looked a lot shittier, at least that would give him some ammunition to fight back with verbally_.)

* * *

_Gotham City_:

Scraping his right foot against a metal girder leading up the way to the apartment building both he and Duquesne had cased for the last hour looking for any trace of the drug dealing degenerate that had shot up three other dealing degenerates and lead to Alcana stepping into a still warm pile of the excrement being pried off by force, the detective cursed under his breath in the language his mother tried to teach him when he was younger. Behind him, Duquesne shook her head disdainfully at the smell of his boots.

"You'll be tossing those out when we get back to the precinct," the smaller detective said, the words stating this as fact rather than a suggestion of a friend to another (_something she liked to pretend that they were not while he constantly wished she would_). Her arms crossed over her deep blue widbreaker, her golden colored badge glinting because of a streetlight around the corner that cast a long orange-yellow glow that reminded Alcana of the lights stuffed into Jack-O-Lanterns every year.

The ginger detective spun on his other heal and stomped the ground (_three inches shy of the puddle Duquesne stood by, thank god, or she would have probably gone to the pawn shop three streets down to see if she could purchase a harpoon or a hammer_) three times, glad for the feeling of grit invading the lining of his shoes like salve, "I'm not tossing these, partner, they're brand new. That's fifty-three dollars and three weeks of saving up money that didn't go to paying for my shitty little apartment. They're staying on my feet even if I have to stick them in that blue liquid the boss makes Larkin fill all the station toilets with."

Duquesne rolled her eyes but started walking, pointedly tilted her head for him to follow (_like he was a stray dog_) her down the next round of alleys they had to cross off their list before they could get back to the station house and out of the soggy, bleeding awful cold that had Alcana stuff his already glove bundled hands into his black coat (_long and soft and something his mom had sent him with a letter that said it would make him look perfect the next time he went out in the hopes of finding himself a woman so she could have some grandkids before she kicked the bucket; her words, not his_) pockets. Her dark eyes scanned for any movement, but rather than continue in silence like she often did (_something that put him on edge and made him fill with meaningless chatter that more often than not led to her hissing profanity and death threats to him later before they both made for their respective homes_), she spoke up quietly towards him over her shoulder; her own hands pulling out a flashlight to shine in the windows of the many abandoned buildings surrounding them like forgotten giants.

"So, how is your mom doing, by the way?"

The feeling of cut glass raised above his head took into him rather quickly at her inquisition and he paused in step before popping over a puddle before him and he gave the back of his partner's head a little look (_narrowed eyes, fingers fiddling at the nooks of his coat pockets; the seams of the stitching tickling his gloves_) of pessimism.

"Why?"

Duquesne looked over her shoulder, about to give a biting remark (_something about their families being entangled in their histories and about how, hey, her mother had been on her back to get to know him more, just go with it for God's sake_) his way… but was interrupted. As it always was in Gotham, the moments between two policemen on duty doing their jobs were crashed upon by deep black leather (_or whatever_) on the wing and the sounds of ropes tightening; they jolted around the corner of the alley (_guns drawn out just in case_) when they heard a shout cut off at a heightened octave that was similar to a rabbit cut down by a wolf.

Rounding into the light of a streetlamp, both detectives almost broke their necks at the sight of a bright red bat insignia rising into the air (_it was clear it was Batman, but the night's darkness made it impossible to see anything other than the emblem and those chilling slits for eyes that were clear ivory_) away from the degenerates they were looking for. Three men tied up in the Batman's gear and unconscious; easy pickings.

Duquesne swiftly moved under the criminals, gun still raised and tapped on her police comm. to call in for a bus to pick up the unconscious bodies, but Alcana locked onto what was remaining of the Bat's figure in the sky (_one of those scary-ass eyes seemed to wink_).

* * *

_Metropolis_:

It was very strange being a part of the JLU when just a few months ago Zeta was still on the run with Ro trying to prove himself to be something more than what he had been built to be. He had found, in these briefest of months, that this strange accumulation of beings that made up the Justice League (_princess Merina who loved living on land almost as much as she loved it back in Atlantis, Warhawk who took some time to think of Zeta as more than a suspicious toaster who talked but warmed up just as soon as Ro had pulled him into the men's room and he'd tromped out two minutes later like a dog hit with a newspaper, Kai-Ro who sometimes liked to teach Zeta alien languages in his free time, and, surprisingly, agent Bennett now that he was assigned to check in on the AI every week in a capacity that made him out to be like a curious uncle as Ro had put it_) were very accepting. They treated him like a person, Red Tornado explaining to him (_on the Watchtower every morning while Ro was made to train with the Batman and Barry_) that that was the way things worked with heroes.

"You know, I think maybe we took a wrong turn."

Zeta turned his face back down from looking up at the sunny, puffy cloud filled sky (_in the exact direction that he knew the Watchtower was currently orbiting over the island of Thymescira in case Alexa was called down for more training from Artemis; the poor thing_) and smiled at the sight of Rosalie in her new school uniform (_she had refused to leave Zeta alone for the first month but had been talked into furthering her education by—and Zeta could almost laugh at the irony thanks to the pointers Red Tornado gave him on humor—agent West and Lee. West had given her a detailed pamphlet about a little school in Central City where he had gone to school and had pointed out that all of the Flash family patrolled the area and would probably not be opposed to Zeta hanging around and helping out with crime while she was busy; this kind of facial tick working so that his left eye twitched during the entire conversation_) of black pants and shirt that was topped off with a ruby red Cardigan, hanging off of a street sign.

Zeta smiled at her, black holographic hair waving in the wind as he pointed down the north end of the crossroad they were at, "We are not on the wrong path. It's another block before we get to the store that has the literature required for your English and writing classes."

Ro jumped from the sign, grabbing his arm to tug him down the way, eyes rolling around in her head as she gave a deep huff of air that tasted of the red and orange leaves all about the street and would soon smell of dead and dying pumpkins that would be cut into with knives and laser-cutters, large spoons dipping into the insides of the produce to be yanked out so it would be easier to make out caricatures of what could be terrifying faces outlined by candles that would bleed out inside the pumpkins until they snuffed themselves out.

"Why do we even need to read Moby Dick and Frankenstein, anyway? How is this relevant to my life?"

"I don't really know. Maybe you should ask agent West?"

* * *

_Dakota_:

"Oracle?"

Barbara smiled, all grace and grandeur, at Max as they both accepted their drinks from over the counter of the bar they were at (_Francis "Hotstreak" looking curiously at Max in recollection of when she had come in talking to Richie about the variables of some math problem he would dare anyone to pronounce properly; handing over the pure black Dark Roast coffee and Irish Creamer with extra foam and chocolate sprinkles_) while they waited for Barbara to receive a call from Dr. Langstrom about their serum for the police department. She had brought up a suggestion earlier and Max found herself intrigued beyond her normal understanding of these strange situations she more often found herself in since she'd found out about Terry and Mr. Wayne.

She brought up the taboo among the Batclan of officially bringing someone into 'The Mission'; giving the provisions of some of the finest technology Max had ever seen with the added advantage of a codename. An important codename that Barbara had herself used at a point in her life she preferred not to recall if she could possibly help it.

Barbara sipped from her drink and smiled at the young lady, "I have no offspring of my own to give this legacy to and nobody who I actually think could pull it off. And you're probably the perfect candidate at such things as hacking into massively protected software without leaving a trace of your ever being there."

"But, how does Mr. Wayne feel about this?"

"I haven't brought it up yet. I'm asking you and I figure that once you get your mind made up about it, I will probably bring it up to him."

Max's big dark eyes pinched at the edges as she tried really hard not to laugh and snort her coffee from the inside of her mouth into and out of the tunnels of her nose.


	67. Skin Moisturizer

Oh, I know this will come off as disjointed and odd, but I felt inspired and this came out of it.

* * *

_-:-  
__**When she grabs at your hands  
Hold hers and play with her fingers**_

_-Unknown._

* * *

**Skin Moisturizer**-:-

"So where do you think I should take Jared for our next date?"

Black hair (_soot colored, but sleek, clean but sweaty after a long day in training_) flashed back and forth and then downwards as Terry held his head in his hands and groaned into his sweaty—salt tasting, scented—palms; Maxine on Damian's porch cackled into her coffee cup while she continued searching for a link in Terry's latest case back in Gotham with minor assistance (_a strange phenomena of the same user, but a different name every time—The Brainchild, King of Chlamydia, Sewn Apple Branches, A Ghost in the Light, SpOTteD BlonDE, —giving her often needed tips_) from an unknown friend. Strange conversations to have: where to eat on a date and where the central hub of drug dealers in the upper west side were staying.

"Why are you asking me?" Terry asked, taking the towel Colin had given him, mopping at the sweat along his brow that was starting to accumulate debris from the wind kicking up on account of the gathering clouds in the sky that would soon lead to torrential rainfall.

"He's your friend," Barry answered, polite and with a simple shrug that made Terry want to smack him on principal if nothing else.

"And until recently I didn't know anything about his preferences to redheads," Terry added for him, "I think we're all sure by now I'm a bigger idiot in this department than Bruce."

Maxine made a little keening noise of adoration when a smiley face popped up on the screen (not normal, it was grey and had black eye-liner on, but better than nothing), giving her what she wanted that wasn't slowly torturing Terry. She'd have to meet this friend of a friend someday (maybe if she took up Barbara's offer and got a mask).

* * *

Hands, much bigger than his own, played with Damian's fingers gingerly after the brunette was done wiping the loose traces of the flour he'd been messing with while in the process of making cookies with Colin for the brats sitting out on his porch. It would have been better (the cookies, at least) for all of them if Tim had lifted the quarantine off of Deidre for the twice a week training; at least then they could have decent food. But, unfortunate as it was, Damian's older brother was adamant that the blonde stay in the country (_chasing chickens, milking cows, having the most awkward conversations with the Kent family that Damian would have paid to get on tape had Colin not shot that down in a blink_) for a longer length of time that would assist in her not being angry-pissed-off-so-very-whiney (_Damian would have preferred her at least a little pissed off; it made her appear like a real human being_).

On the plus side, Colin was happy that Damian was engaging in activities that would allow him to eat something with more sugar than he usually took in, in the privacy of their kitchen; it opened up many possibilities to get more…warm with each other than they had been in a while. Colin wouldn't stop playing with Damian's hair, or fingers or…(_warm lips pressing together that taste like some of the freshly made cookies, melted chocolate, cold milk_) other stuff.

* * *

(_There was nothing in Joker that had ever been committed to the idea of familial relations. Not a thing inside him, when he saw those girls in Tim's body, those first few confrontations, that wanted to get to know them—protect them—or anything. He used people; that was the way things went_.)

"How did you know I was married?"

He didn't mean for the question to come out like that while doing the dishes in the Kent kitchen with the girl. To the contrary, he intended to find out the answer to the questions he had about his time being possessed by a computer chip all on his own and never bother mentioning his time around the skittish blonde as long as he could possibly help it. But… she had been opening up and, despite being trained by a master detective, he couldn't figure out one tiny question. That, and Conner had gone to the store for margarine and wasn't likely to come back until after what was likely to be a long and awkward conversation (the girl had got up that morning and made him pancakes and he still thought there was a reason behind it besides being nice; he wanted to stay away).

She blinked over at him across from the Kent's dishwasher and set the large plate she had pulled from the sink into the cradle within the machine. One hand absently batted a loose strand of hair back behind her ear so it didn't get it caught when shutting the dishwasher and pressing the button that said "fifteen minutes."

"Nothing too obvious," she answered without the stutter that had been with her since being plopped in Kansas like a baby deer, "It's just that your ring finger, even bleached and hairless, has a little indentation where the ring was. And you're way healthier than what Nanna described him as. Hardy and not, you know…junky skinny."

Tim continued to chew on the candied almond he'd gotten from the Kent's cupboards, looking more curious (not in a bad way, but in the way that he often acted when one of his kids said something weird and he needed clarification as a father), "Is that bad?"

She smiled—genuinely and pretty—at him and skipped over to the screen door, picking up the keys to the tractor off of one of the hooks right next to the door, sandals she'd bought for the country very easy to slip in as he followed her out (_he couldn't help it; even if she handled way heavier equipment before—that flew through the air or blew up—she was dainty and it was really heavy machinery and he kept getting bad feelings about her hair getting caught in something_).

"Not at all! You're practically a mountain man."

He winced when she took her seat in the tractor and turned the key (it was old, but Tim would remind himself to talk to Conner about that later), dark black exhaust exiting the tailpipe as she turned the machine to work through the field before she had to take the dishes out of the washing machine.

Krypto came out from guarding the chickens to sit next to Tim and the both of them tilted their heads every time the girl gave a delighted little squeak in turning the tractor back around.


	68. I Commend You

This chapter goes out to **Kirra kills** who is a sweetheart and raised a very good question and an interesting opportunity to include Renee Montoya with hints of her comic self. This also includes a quote from **Kirra's** end in homage to my happiness for questions and long reviews—both of which I enjoy.

* * *

_-:-  
Stirring in the graves  
And the screaming of giant winds!  
Watch out! Look!  
-Sweeney Todd._

* * *

**I Commend You**-:-

**At Present**…

Delia didn't really like sunshine and she hated anywhere that wasn't Gotham, but even the Joker left town when the heat was on, he was broke and was in need of new material to spread about terror and humor.

That thought in mind, Delia buttoned up the rest of her stolen pink Peacoat and tightened the scarf around her neck—eggplant purple that went very well with the shoes on her feet, even if there was dirt all over them. Stepping out onto the landing and away from the train she had been stuck on for three damn days (_stealing the food on the train had not been pleasant; too easy to accomplish, and unsatisfying to her stomach and her own sense of fun_); she looked left and then right. Spotting the sign with the name of the street she was on—a small town in Kentucky just fifty miles away from where they held the horse derby every year and most trainers and breeders of thoroughbreds had built and bought farms from generation unto generation—she walked towards that and kept her face down and out of sight of the general masses.

She was lucky to be only a few miles away from where she intended to stalk the grounds and observe the occupants of a farm where she would either make an ally or move on entirely for her next big score.

* * *

"Eddie!"

A head full of somewhat light orange and white hair that had, once upon a time, been ginger and much thicker bobbed against the stomach of a red mare that had been brought in two weeks earlier from Georgia; the large beast being pregnant and the former owners wanting to sell her immediately once they realized she'd gotten pregnant by a mule and would probably be worthless once she birthed the foal and got back into show jumping. Eyes that still didn't need glasses (quite yet) looked over through the archway leading into the stall, blinked dizziness away and looked upon the still stunningly beautiful woman that was half-owner of the establishment _and_ his wife.

Edward Nigma brushed a stray lock of hair out of the horse's eyes, "Yes, Leslie, what is it?"

The meta woman walked up to the stall door, arms bracing the wood to hold her up and amused at the sight of her husband of twenty years still going over the mare while paying attention to her in a most discreet way, "Just got a call from one of yours."

"One of mine?"

"Yeah, the Stickman himself calling about maybe coming up for a visit next month to talk about whatever it is you crazies talk about," Leslie (_Livewire herself and reformed as best as she possibly could be for a being of living electricity that had married a man with such OCD it was still known to them that most of the Rogue community thought they only got married on some failed bet or dare_) nodded, picking up a bridle that had fallen off of the stall door and then attaching it back onto the hook it was supposed to occupy.

It was little wonder, Eddie thought privately, that Jonathan still didn't like the blue woman. The nickname Stickman had been going on for ten years, though, so he had stopped bothering to correct her on that front.

The mare tensed beside Eddie as he got out the pills he had been giving her for upwards of about three days, but took them easily when he pulled from his red checkered jacket a handful of oats to dissuade her from the medication. Once her teeth and lips were grazing his palm, Eddie turned back to his wife and nodded to let her know he had been listening, "Not crazy talk. It's family, Leslie. We need to talk about what's going on in Gotham even if we really don't want to. You've seen the news."

"Yeah, so you've got a new Batman after years and years; so what?"

Eddie frowned at that, stepping out of the stall, but careful to put the lock on the door otherwise the mare would wander off and be at risk for getting into a fight with the big, Bushido black stud horse that had been exceedingly violent towards all the other horses since their stable hands Jeremy Ellis and Sarah Larkin (_college kids that needed the money to get married and were not above working for two people seen by the general public as still being slightly deranged_) had gotten him to breed with the Kentucky Derby winner the year before. He couldn't have that, even if he was in a complicated conversation with his wife; the cost of training and breeding horses as a way to make a living.

"So," Eddie started off, adjusting his jacket to a more comfortable position and wrapping his arms around Leslie's middle to pull her off of the stall and spin her around in the air twice before there was a little twinge in his spine and he had to set her down to talk to her, "If there was a new Krytponian in Metropolis, wouldn't you be on the horn talking to Volcana and nitpicking about the breeding habits of superheroes?"

"That was fifteen years ago!"

Oh, yes, fifteen years ago and thirty volumes above her usual voice level yelling about the skinny, auburn haired hero who had come into the public eye with Superboy. Eddie would not soon forget that and neither would Leslie, judging by the chagrined, but understanding look she was giving the genius man. Like when he'd caught her in the river after a battle with Superman and she'd smirked at him from his own bed in his own hideout while in his own too-big on her white shirt and said, "So does this mean we're going steady?" and he'd sputtered for five minutes before denying that he'd done anything wrong.

"And it's been even longer than that since Jervis and Jonathan and I have seen any of the Batclan. We've earned this opportunity to consider on whether or not he'd be any good when he looks like he's probably in college or something. Plus there are the _rumors_ about _**other**_ things and that's more talking that we do in _years_ right there."

Leslie shut her mouth at the tone he gave her in the word 'rumors' that made her think of bright blue eyes and water hitting her in the face in an attempt to wake her up after being doused in dust that made her very tired and just a plain human being in the eyes of Batgirl and Supergirl. The wound of regret and loss was still fresh on Eddie, even though he only admitted it after the coverage on the news and hacking into the GCPD files to see photos on the autopsy that sent him to hide in the bathroom for five hours to cry and vomit out of sight of both Leslie and their stable hands. Guilt and regret in heaves that she promised she wouldn't bring up unless he did.

She leaned into him as they neared the house.

…Over the hill in the farther pastures, neither of them took note of a couple of the stud horses bellowing a high racket when someone that didn't belong on the premises got too close to the gate and they smelled the blood and sweat beneath deceptive clothing.

* * *

**Gotham: Four Days Before the Present: Arkham Asylum's Break Room**…

The pen she had broken on her way into the asylum (_writing on those little brown and green leaflet papers that would remind her later at the grocery store that she should get those dark green pears and baker's yeast for the weekend when her son came home to her and Harvey to make pizza_) had spattered her fingers with black, sticky ink that still wafted fumes when she brought her hand to eye level to see where the dark had seeped into her skin and pores. Renee would have to find special swabs and bubble wash to get the stuff off, but for the time being she just had to walk brisk and with straightforward purpose to the destination of one of the high security cells.

It had been almost amusing when that poor Peyton Riley had called Renee up per Joan Leland's suggestion and gotten Harvey on the phone with the quick answer that Renee didn't handle psychos anymore. She had grabbed the phone out of her husband's hand and shooed him off with a warning to the sounds of Peyton apologizing a few dozen times before Renee asked what was wrong and received a rather troubling answer that Joker's Daughter ("That's all she would give us. Or she said to call her Jane Doe which we all know was a joke so I don't know what to tell you there") had gotten out, they didn't know how and could she please come over to go over the cell and see maybe had she had managed it?

"Is it just me, or haven't we met before?"

Renee turned the corner and almost jumped out of her skin when she came face level and forward with Joan Leland in her doctor's coat and holding her clipboard like she had never left the toxic environment that was Arkham Asylum.

Renee smiled wide at someone that was as good as a friend from generations and decades ago (_that perfume she used to wear was gone and replaced with Mauve Chocolat that made Joan feel like she was faced with someone that suffered an eating disorder, but not all the time_) and leaned in to give her a quick hug with arms clothed in her long black winter coat, muscles contracting around Joan's middle with force that never quite left from working the beat of Gotham's back alleys and more private dealings that Renee would take to her grave and never reveal to anyone that didn't hold their own secrets in the light or in the dark. Joan gave a little squeak, but hugged back with the arm that wasn't holding the clipboard; clean fingernails almost touching the ends of Renee's graying hair.

"Hey, Joan, it's been too long," Renee smiled as she let the two inch shorter woman go, mindful of the ink stains still on her hands and tucking them neatly into the pockets of her overcoat.

"Mm-hm," Joan smiled back, the lines around her lips dimming as they moved further into the secure wing of the asylum and Joan used her pass-code to get them through the door; her tone was unamused as she continued, "And under too familiar circumstance. When will we ever figure out how inmates under such security manage to escape like it's a walk through an open door with the keys in their palm?"

"I don't know," Renee answered, humoring the question that was sort of like a game between the two ladies, "When you figure out why this crazy chick used a fake name that was already taken, maybe?"

"Jane Doe?"

"Joker's Daughter," Renee shrugged as they came to the 'cage' at the very end of the hall that was left open for the detective to go over while Joan stood outside and observed Renee step over some of the odd drawings that had fallen to the floor (A rising cloud of grey as a melting star hit a street in the middle of a powerful city; a blue rose that was open wide and being torn apart by a pair of hands that were covered in black leather and had spiked gauntlets at the wrists; a diagram of a pregnant woman with two fetuses growing in individual colors of red and white) and ghost her fingers over the bed that had been made by the young crazy that had left behind her boyfriend that was in the cafeteria snarling at other male inmates and bemoaning being left behind, "An incident when I was still in Major Crimes and Jim Gordon was still in charge. Alternate universe problem with a woman from some Earth where our bad guys were good there, and vice versa. She was still crazy, but she was a hero, from what I remember."

Joan gave a raw half-smirk at the knowledge freely given, "Something to think about the next time I have her in therapy."


	69. My Quiet Nightmare

I am back in the reality of this story and feeling relatively good about myself, but found something bothering me since some things in here are connected and some are stand alone like I said WAY back in the beginning. From now on, here on out, I will be making archs and time tables so you the people understand what stands with what and where and so forth. I am also taking requests now because the plot-rabbit that started this whole thing is dying of hunger. I dedicate this chapter, again and with good reason, to **Kirra kills**.

* * *

_-:-  
A horse is a horse, of course, of course.  
-Mr. Ed_

* * *

**My Quiet Nightmare**-:-_Part of the 'I Commend You' arch_-:-

"Oh, God, how does anyone stand you stupid things?"

The horse that was stuck in a single paddock (_well stocked with sparkling clean water and oats in a bucket at the far corner that was sparking up inflammation in the back of her nasal cavity_) for special training after being shipped cross country for show jumping leapt and brayed furiously at the young woman in the pink coat as she stood at the front door of the office that looked more like a mix between a simple red barnhouse and garage. Delia hadn't decided whether or not she should ring the bell or if she should go back the way she came so she could settle the cigarette cravings she had been feeling since she ran out on the train while crossing from cold counties to areas far too warm for her taste.

The country really sucked, in Delia's opinion; even in the dead of winter the sun was easy to feel on ones back and she knew that she was sweating off the natural human skin color makeup she'd applied so she wouldn't be easy to spot.

The horse brayed and snorted towards the young woman again, his right front leg pawing at the soggy ground, aggressive—or trying to be—and not noting at all that aware that he was clomping and disturbing his own shit. Delia turned her head at him in exasperation and flashed her teeth with the added threat of one step in the big creature's direction.

The horse reared back and she cackled under her breath when his side struck the paddock's wooden fence beams.

She turned back to the door and was surprised (_though surprise wasn't quite a proper phrase as she was herself and didn't feel much in the way of surprise unless Batman or one of his little goody-goodies were involved_) to find it open with a young man standing in front of her. A rope was twined around his shoulder, probably to train the horse, and the grip his hand on it tightened when her acidic green eyes met his own.

"You're not Eddie."

* * *

**Arkham underground**…

Artists were important to the world, and when they were psychotic or as psychopathic as the girl Renee was sent to consider over with Leland, then all art possessed in the single room their Jane Doe was placed in, was nothing short of looking over a physical scope of self that would never come into play in therapy or if ever even out in real life. Joan knew this and Renee knew this and that was why Joan stayed perfectly silent as Renee flipped over the mattress in the single person cell (_somehow Jane Doe had been able to get flowers of Jasmine and Lilac and kept them entwined into the bars that made up the frame of the bed; simple and easy enough to do when Joan had noted weeks ago that Jane Doe didn't sleep much and when she did it was completely without motion, and perhaps even dream cycles_) to find dead plants and dry yellowed papers with more drawings on them that seemed more…real than every other piece on the floor or taped to the walls with clear stickiness that shined awkwardly in the false light of the asylum hallway.

Renee picked up a stray page that, when the mattress was lifted and set against the wall and pressing down papers that she thought were worth little of her time, seemed more detailed and disturbingly familiar in some way.

There on the page, her thumb careful not to touch the image, were three diamond shapes that curved brilliantly with charcoal so that, when Jane Doe went further into the details, some of the pencil grey moved with the bridges of her fingerprints. Each diamond held a face in them that Joan, even from only looking over Renee's shoulder and with poor vision, could identify. A man with fine features and a Bowler hat on his head to keep his eyes in shadows with a curvy and almost elegant question mark formed on the cheek below his left eye like a tattoo. A woman was in the diamond below the man, her whole figure fitted into the diamond almost so she gave the appearance of a ballerina, just as skinny and beautiful but only dressed in a shift that clung to her body and her tiny breasts; her hair wild in style, but controlled like it was forever standing on end; one of her palms was braced outwards like a cat and a carefully drawn lightning bolt was in the center. The third diamond was sitting almost alone from the other two—a third wheel apparently, in Renee's opinion—and wasn't quite as detailed, but Renee could tell it was a woman, young brunette with long hair and pretty enough for Jane Doe to have paid specific attention to the eyes that seemed…too cool to properly belong to the girl that looked about the same age as the escapee.

The people were important, there was no doubt about that in the least, given that the details were specific enough to twinge something along the sinew and muscles of Renee's gut, but the shapes they were held in were more-so important.

"When Jane Doe came here, did she have much money on her?"

(_Here. The word meant, of course, the system of law and psychological learning and intelligence gathering. The system that, though she was unknown by name for the moment, she would always be known within because of wicked deeds and the like_.)

Joan flipped some of the pages of her clipboard until she came to what she had read at least a dozen times; handing the wood holder of paper (_what a wonderful thing to have that most of the practicing doctors of the asylum didn't seem to appreciate_) to the detective and receiving the paper Renee had been holding in a quiet trade.

"She had a few hundred credits hidden inside the folds of her clothing, old fashioned silver dollars in the heels of her boots, an earring made of crappy silver that had a pencil eraser for a stud to keep it in place—"

"I would have paid to see Commissioner Gordon's reaction to that."

"Well, it had been in her ear for almost three days apparently, so that wasn't attractive when it came off, that's for sure and certain," Joan shrugged, her fingers tracing over the lone man in his diamond and reminding herself to call one of her former patients after this was over with, "And the last thing they got off of her was a perfect blue diamond and two little garnets that were in a dimebag she had tucked into her…uh…"

"Let me guess, it was her Ladies Chamber?"

"Exactly. The cops thought at first that she was holding drugs to sell before Batman sent her to Gordon, so when they got her really-very-extra-sure sedated and fished that bag out of her, they were surprised to say the least."

"Well, really, they shouldn't have expected her to have drugs," Renee shrugged, tucking the clipboard under her arm to step closer to the bed frame and look over more sketches, the scent of the dead flowers making her nose twitch uncomfortably and she almost snorted out the sweetness that made her almost sick to think Jane Doe—who looked so like the monster that must have been dead—could smell like something so pretty, "If she's sticking to the Joker's MO, then she would know that he didn't dabble in that stuff unless it was to spread mass panic or to earn large sums of money in a very short amount of time. When she was brought in, was there any news from the underground that something was going to happen?"

"If there was, and I'm pretty sure there wasn't from the way her boyfriend has been complaining in group, then Batman and the Justice League shut it up really quick. Though, you know it's harder to pick up proper cues from her because she is a woman who exhibits sociopathic tendencies and sloppy impulse control."

Renee nodded. Joker was a nightmare to understand on a good day, she couldn't imagine what this little copycat was like to talk to. She felt that familiar rise of sadness and empathy she always did for Joan churn in the back of her gut. Like a mass collective of flesh eating beetles out in the deserts of Arabia or Egypt, roiling over each other to get to the scent of what they desired most; fleeing back inside when it became obvious that they weren't going to get what they wanted.

* * *

She was secretly rich and she was that horrific little ragdoll that had gotten out of Arkham as it stood in its own newfound glory; this was Eddie's impression the moment his stable hand Jeremy Ellis walked into the stall with their newest pregnant mare and said Eddie had a visitor who said she was his niece.

"Is there something you want, or do I have to call the cops?"

"My, you're sharper than your age gives you credit for. I was expecting you to offer me tea and cookies inside your house before we got down to business, really."

"Please get to the point. My wife would not be very pleased to find the murderer of a mutual friend on our property."

Delia showed her teeth with the smile that didn't quite stretch as far as she would have liked, but the rustling of feathers at the far end of the barn had her attention and she could only do one or the other when she was actually quite tired from her train ride. Much to her chagrin, looking over the man before her in clothing stained with farm debris, hands clothed in rubber gloves with petroleum gel for the horse he was about to use a sonogram on, eyes as sharp as diamonds in their glasses cases in a museum, she knew that while she'd hoped his mind would be more open, the visit might well turn into a waste of time.

That feather sound intensified just out of her eyesight and Delia glanced down the lane of the barn before looking back at Eddie, her makeup making her feel even less comfortable in the warmth of the stables. The sweat on her was chaffing the line of her back.

There was still a trace, impossible black colored lice eggs along the root of hairs on human or dog, of disappointment for Delia that Eddie wasn't quite willing to speak longer—long enough for her to rest before turning back towards town and away from those horses and disgusting chickens she had passed on the way—but she shrugged it off like she did everything else.

"I'm looking for a certain lady that a certain Lex Luthor produced from his loins. You're the most likely person to know where she is. Tell me her name and where she is and I'll be on my way and out of your hair."

"Why?"

"That's my business, but if it assuages that nasty sense of guilt all you reformed convicts seem to have, I will not kill her when I meet her. I just… want to see something. Get to know her before she becomes a real player in the games we play."

Eddie took pause, weighing his options like he might weigh the probability of walking into a door that could lead into either Hell or Texas. In his opinion, after living his life, one could hardly be worse than the other, but then, he was biased.

"…Lucinda. She's probably still living in the Metropolis East End, given the fluctuation of computer thefts going on around there. She's not very friendly, you understand," he answered finally, stepping closer to the mare as the beast finally noticed the young woman that she had smelled a while before but hadn't been able to sight properly. She was a white mare with brown eyes and Delia liked the way her eyelids seemed to shine their blue veins when her eyes widened and she started tromping in her pen, anxious and afraid of a girl that couldn't have even weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet.

"Just like her daddy. I wouldn't expect anything less."

Eddie narrowed his eyes, but before he responded and could have wanted to respond, that feather rustling was made clear and a rooster (_clean and almost silky like it had been bought perfect and stayed that way for a good long time_) hopped into sight from around the corner. Its long legs stretched and claws scraped the ground.

He turned back—never turn away from someone with acid green eyes that turned blood red in wrath or joy and skin that had to be painted on to look normal to the general masses—to find the girl gone…

UP ON The hill that lead away from Eddie's farm, trodding the dirt quickly and leaving very little evidence in her step, Delia stuffed her hands into her coat pockets with anger in her veins. While she had gotten a name she had been looking for—never mind that there was no end part to it; what did she need a last name for when she already had a picture, a description and now as much she could hope for as an address?—she had not gotten an ally. An ally would have made the journey by train and the walk through the Godless Kentucky sun far more worth the trouble of those horses and those awful…

Clucking made her look up from the ground and she almost tripped when she saw another rooster ahead in her path, a pair of black feathered lady chickens following him.

The male bird, a fine Mustang red color with eyes of simple black-brown, looked her directly in the eye and Delia felt bile rise up in the back of her throat.

She hissed at the thing; it didn't even flinch at her or draw back.

In spite of all the pride she carried (_why shouldn't she be prideful when she was who she was and did what she wanted with little resistance from the world at large?)_ in her, she forwent her own pleasure and took seven paces to the left of the path that the rooster remained standing on and continued on the way to town.

The sun seemed to get even more heated above her head when the bird cackled over to its ladies and moved towards Eddie's where it thought it might find some food, even if its own farm was half a mile in the opposite direction.


	70. Fork, Spoons and Knives

Because I am particularly grateful to both **Kirra** **kills** and **RMMB**, this chapter goes to the both of them, not only for contribution of thought, but for the ability to keep me going. Let us try a different perspective, because there has been very little but angst for the last couple chapters. I like having actual one-shots within the one-shots.

* * *

_-:-  
When the pair of magpies fly together, they do not envy the pair of phoenixes.  
-Lady Ho._

* * *

**Fork, Spoons and Knives**-:- "_I Commend You Arc_"-:-

There is something to be said for the timing of all things.

Example: If Terry hadn't noticed the bat struggling beyond glass and numbers and springs, he would never have found the Batcave and become Batman after various situations that probably would have killed any other person without his incredible luck.

Another example is that while Delia had escaped and the cops were trying to find her and the little monstrous bitch scoured the country for information and pieces to a game she was setting up for only God knew what reason, more functioning members of the Justice League had returned from a mission on another astral existence and were experiencing… problems.

From his position standing before the five members of the League that had gone off on a the mission that had required craft, cunning and misdirection, J'onn tried to tune out the sounds of Damian laughing his ass off down the hall and all of the static buzzing that was going on inside the heads of the League members.

"Now, there's really no need to panic. As long as nothing happens to these…"

"Daemons," the large, beige and umber brown colored giraffe beside Kai-Ro supplied easily, voice as docile and to the point as the monk Green Lantern himself who retained his position hovering in the Lotus mid-point between the Giraffe's head and shoulder, non-ring hand brushing over a patch of brown that bore resemblance to the state of Montana on a map on her neck.

"Thank you," J'onn continued, not missing a note at being spoken to by, again, a _giraffe_, "As long as nothing happens to them, and we get one of our reserve magicians to reverse the spell that warlock put on you, things should be back to normal."

"And how long will this take, exactly?" Barry asked, twitching, as the small grey rabbit that turned out to be his soul (no way his brother was finding out about that; not in a million years) frowned up at him, no doubt sensing his hope to get rid of her as soon as possible.

"He doesn't know," the silver, winged creature that looked honest-to-God like a miniature griffon on Rex's shoulder (voice disturbingly similar to Shayera that had all the members cringing) spat at the speedster, "We haven't had anyone who uses magic on retainer in over a year. I wouldn't hold your breath."

"No need to be so harsh," the large (twice the size of a motorcycle) black she-wolf beside Terry growled lowly, ears folded back as the griffon hissed down at her and J'onn rubbed the lining of his forehead, hoping that the two animals wouldn't end up fighting as much as their humans usually did. He really wasn't sure of what spiritual effigies were capable of when angered and he didn't care to know.

"Right, we'll just have to ride this out," Terry continued on, worried expression staying more fixated at the very quiet and disturbed looking part-time member that had stuck herself (and her now visually available soul) in the far corner of the room where nobody passing by could see her and possibly devolve into insane laughter like Damian had, "And have faith that this will be all over by the end of the day."

J'onn pretended not to hear the pointed phrasing in that and, with a little nod to all of them (even the girl pouting in the corner) phased down through the floor and went to go and continue making phone calls until someone answered.

Once the last Martian was gone from sight, the four males in the room and their female Daemons went in separate directions… mostly.

* * *

"So what are you supposed to be, exactly?"

The bunny that Barry had simply taken to calling Rabbit ("_What's the point of naming her when she's going to be back inside me soon enough—that's even more awkward than this whole thing!") _was extremely talkative and once they had all been transported to Damian's house—out in the middle of nowhere so they could get dressed in civilian clothes after showering off the weird pink and slimy gunk the sorcerer had used on them—had taken to trying to get the…_thing_ that was Deidre's Daemon to utter a single word.

Despite the fact that Rabbit had all of Barry's abilities, including which was the ability to annoy someone into blabbing anything, it was proving a losing battle to get the thing with hooves and feathers and a snake-y body and a horn that curved with bubbled ridges and a face attached to a neck that gave one the impression of looking at some antique deer figurine to so much as look at her and Wolf (_Terry was more imaginative than Barry, but he also refused to put more effort into something that would be gone back into himself too soon to gain attachment to_) let alone speak. Which was saying a lot, seeing as they had been sitting in the living room for an hour by themselves while Terry and Barry helped Colin in the kitchen to make lunch comprised of something that Damian probably would find un-nutritious and therefore inedible, and Deidre was up in the guest shower trying to get some alien brambles out of her hair with a metal bristled brush and razors that had the habit of nicking the tips of her fingers.

Wolf just seemed to be enjoying watching Damian's kittens (_all the others had been sold off to good homes with a threat from Damian that if the owners abused them they would be sued into the ground immediately_) of black ebony and yellow-yellow-and-spots run up and down the staircase without managing to break something or even giving the slightest hint that they were afraid of the canine bigger than the sofa or the THING whose head almost touched the fake chandelier while sitting down. She, like Terry, knew that trying to get any part of Deidre to talk when she didn't want to (even her soul) was a losing battle.

But that didn't mean Wolf wouldn't pay attention.

Rabbit sped around the white (_this seemed a running joke through Wolf's—and therefore Terry's—thoughts when it came to Deidre; how when you got to know something that turned from dark side to light, it shined brilliantly. This spoke so for the Daemon as blue eyes watched Persephone tackle Hades, landing on the Thing's winding feather tail with purple tips and then bounding away with a little kitty-yelp_) Daemon's front legs like a blemish against fresh snow, still talking miles and miles a minute.

"I mean, if you can get the old, dark man of the Batclan to fall to the ground laughing just by existing, I figure you must be something else. You can't be a dragon, though, or I hold the very hopeful opinion that you would have lit Rex's Griffon on fire the minute she gave you that nasty side stare and hissed at you twice. Nerve of her, by the way," Rabbit paused as she hopped onto Thing's shoulder, edged atop his head (_it was a he; Wolf was sure from the smell and the rather sizeable sac between muscled elk-like legs that was hidden with the feathered tail when the Thing saw Wolf actually looking at it_) and tapped a fluffy paw against the single horn and the other paw rubbed wiry fawn ears, "If Deidre's a lady, then you must be a gentleman."

Voice of dark humor and soft grace—as one might assume an ancient such as Aristotle or Averroes would sound—hummed and Rabbit fell off the Thing when words formed from that noise and out of lips that hid pins and needle teeth, "…Well, thank you for that opinion."

Wolf raised her head and smiled equally sharp teeth at the blush that showed ruby through white-white-white feathers when the first thing out of Rabbit from getting what she wanted was a long-winded squeal that made Thing blush harder.

* * *

"Could you please sedate him and get him to shut the fuck up? PLEASE."

The way Static spoke with only the most mundane of desperation, one would never guess (from behind and just coming into the medical ward) that he was holding onto the spawn of Batman and the al Ghul heiress, but Alexa stood witness, a needle in her hand. Perhaps she could get Damian ton stop laughing before she actually stuck him, but if not, then at least Static could promise to knock the brunette out with enough electricity to the neck to knock out a rhino. And he had a cooler head then she did just looking at Damian, so that was even better.

Heedless of the needle in the (useless) Amazon's hand, Damian continued to snicker, but it was winding down a little from the full blown "bwah-hah-ha's" of the previous hours when Terry, Deidre and Barry and their Daemon's were still in the Watchtower and into a sound Static recalled twelve year old girls making when he was still tiny. It would have been embarrassing for anyone else, but with Damian it was just downright scary as fuck.

"Stop laughing at the kids. You're an adult for god's sake," Virgil growled when Alexa approached and Damian swatted the needle out of her hand with little effort. Like smacking away a particularly large housefly ready to drop.

Damian straightened up a little, giggling on pause to answer the older man, but the creepy little smile never leaving for somewhere—anywhere—else, "I wasn't laughing at _all_ of them. Just the little girl's…heh…just her—HAH! I'm sorry, hold on."

Alexa jumped a little when the son of the Bat slapped himself in the face and then looked back at Virgil—Static entirely unimpressed. He was much too used to all of the Bats to care about a little display that allowed Damian to assault himself. It almost made up for the last hour of looking for someone to help Virgil stick the demon spawn with a needle full of nice sedative.

"I was just…laughing at Quinn's impressive display of being a classy little Victorian. That's quite the public announcement."

"She never said—"

"Her soul turned into a Daemon with the equivalency to a more dangerous looking _UNICORN_! I've read all of Father's magic books that even remotely talk about Daemons or mythological beasts and she might as well walk around with the word 'virgin' tattooed to her forehead for all the dragging around that animal will get her now. You can't tell me that it's not hilarious."

Static was probably going to knock Damian out with that tasing move anyway.

* * *

The resounding "_ZAP_!" came as a rather painful announcement to all five of the afflicted League members that J'onn had found a magic user that was willing to put the genie back in the lamp, as the saying went.

Unfortunately, the Martian neglected to call up the members first and all of them ended up vomiting from the shock where they stood.

Kai-Ro was lucky in that he was in the middle of the forests of Bangkok meditating and just had a cluster of trees and birds to observe his giraffe disappear in a plume of grey smoke back into the monk through his nostrils and throat that burned like swallowing an entire jug of tequila in one go. Backlash being that once Daemon reformed into soul, it felt like Kai-Ro had been punched and then the tequila metaphor came back in reverse.

He had only miso ramen and lemon water for breakfast in the Watchtower, so at least all the Green Lantern had to do was pick up some dirt and cover the evidence…

Rex, where he stood in the Watchtower's gym room talking to Merina—Griffon on his shoulder and then gone with a flutter—was a little less lucky. His breakfast consisted of eggs, bacon, ham and two stacks of pancakes with a glass of goat's milk. Merina was lucky to have him standing on the other side of the punching bag they were sharing and chattering around, not so lucky to have punched the bag and sent it flying against Rex just as the gag reflex clenched and sent orders to his stomach…

_("Oh, boys, I'm so sorry!"_

_Terry continued to tuck his head into one side of the silver metal lined sink, Barry's head tucked into the sink on the other side, both of them heaving from the taste of their souls settling back against their skins and insides and their nostrils flaring in rhythm and even tandem as the brunette and ginger heaved stomach fluid down the drain._

_Colin stood behind them, having saved the taco meat they had been cooking and set it off to the side, rubbing their shoulders and uttering comforting words of, "Well, at least the Daemons are back to being in you and out of trouble and danger's way," or "If Damian says anything about the smell I'll just threaten him about that laughing spell…oh, I think I should go check on Deidre. She'd still in the shower…"_

_Barry and Terry heaved again and Colin changed his footing from going towards the stairs and resumed his position of rubbing their shoulders, "You know what, never mind. I just heard her turn off the water; she's probably fine…"_

_From her place inside the shower, completely opposite of the guys where they all stood—all four of them, wherever they were—was the difference in soul transference in that, while all of the guys felt and smelled and ached from their Daemons returning to them, the blonde felt a little dizzy, smelled bergamot and then had to rest her head against the shower wall. But there was no nausea.)_

Closing his book on Daemons and spell reversals, Doctor Fate wished J'onn good luck when the League members decided to call him up with 'thank you' or 'why didn't you warn us' in not in absolute terms that order.

In his hand and then tucked into his pocket, was the payment for performing this service.

A very large paper picture of all five Daemons and their humans, fresh from the printer, was going to be hung on his wall when Fate got back to his study. He rarely got amused, but such conflicting images of the soul was sometimes quite humorous.


	71. Not a Bit Reprehensible

**Kirra** **kills** gave me a prompt in which I was to use Damian, Klarion, the Daemons and Terry's poor use of judgment. Needless to say that I am quite pleased in doing this as it was the first request given directly and it give me the chance to go further into League business.

* * *

_-:-  
Furthermore, she not only makes the perverse look not only disgusting, but utterly foolish.  
-Hog's Head Conversations._

* * *

**Not a Bit Reprehensible**-:-

Klarion the Witch Boy was not someone that Bruce Wayne tended to care for, before his retirement or after, simply because the immortal delinquent didn't bother him. Sure, he bothered Stephanie Brown (_poor Tim, not knowing that a lord of chaos had taken a fancy to the blonde after she'd helped him with an incident with his familiar felidae Teekl when she was only in high school_) on and off through the years and even babysat her sons when she asked him nicely; but he only ever caused real trouble to Jason Blood or the Young Justice and Teen Titans and even then it was only because he was chaos incarnate and therefore easily bored to death when stuck in Limbo Town on some other plain of dimension Bruce had only seen twice and didn't care to again after he'd almost burned at the stake in a Salem-esque fashion.

Still, Bruce had given Terry reading material that explained the importance of getting to know magical enemies, with Klarion as a foot-note spanning the bottom of a data-pad in a collection of sentences that didn't even amount to two hundred words and hoped for the best if Etrigan got loose from Jason or Mordred ever got his eternal youth back or something or the other.

Bruce didn't think he would see Klarion after the Thomas Drake out-grew his diapers and had vomited all over Teekl, but even the supernatural, on occasion took the time to find out of old legends gave birth to new ones.

The first time, Klarion had set a Daemon spell on the League to test their metal and see if the rumors were true. It was easy enough to figure that out from the description Terry had given him about the type of magic and the "wizard" (_oh, really, Terry needed to be schooled in learning differences in magic titles so none of them got offended and turned Terry into a toad one day_) himself that it was indeed Klarion and Bruce had made preparations in the event that the immortal should come up with anything more malicious.

Bruce honestly didn't think Klarion would show up a second time, in the Metro Tower of all places, to ask Terry if his reputation had proceeded him. Of course Terry would have to ask what reputation that was and one thing would lead to another and Damian would show up and ask another question and then out of Klarion's mouth, like a fog-horn would echo through the League hallways, "I was only mentioned in a FOOT-NOTE?!" followed by Terry muttering something and Damian cackling and then, "YOU DIDN'T EVEN _**READ**_ THE FOOT-NOTE?!"

Verbal accounts varied, but from what Bruce could gather afterward in briefing was that Klarion went DARK CHAOS OVERLORD on all of the people in the room—which was the cafeteria, open 24/7 for all League members that lived in different time zones, by the way—in an action that lead to him re-casting the Daemon spell, demanding Stephanie come speak to him at once to make up for this "exorcize in poor human judgment" and sending various members to weird locations in pairs as "payment" for "this irreprehensible insult" to him until "compensation" was achieved on his end.

The first Batman was not pleased at the end of that day.

* * *

Damian's Daemon turned out to be both a source of great amusement and that creeping feeling that fills a person when they enter an area known for mass genocide or just a singular grisly suicide involving things that had probably been done to Rasputin of Russia before he finally died.

"_A Perytion_," Lian recited over the League comm. link from an old beastiary book she'd pilfered from the League archives in her seat in the Watchtower while she looked over lit up monitors and did her best to assist Damian, Terry and their Daemons out of the swamp they had ended up in that was making it difficult to teleport them back to civilization, "_A poorly known creature from Greek mythology that was said to be the representation of dead humans that had not earned their way into the afterlife… Their physical form is said to be an amalgam of elk, birds and fish, though accounts vary, blah-blah-blah… They attack sailors to kill them and once that act is completed their shadows turn from the shapes of humans into their current form and they ascend into the sky…"_

A large bug that flitted its wings so hard that it sounded like the electric razor he kept in his bathroom made its way to Damian's face and he snarled before slapping it away with the back of his hand. The insect buzzed twice more and Terry blinked when he heard its body hit the puddle of scum and smog colored water the four had been wading through for over an hour. The splash was not as comforting as it should have been when Damian's Perytion (_it was pronounced like Parisian—dancers, ballet, paintings made by people who were distressed in the head and left their works in the woods where they rotted into nothingness among trees and squirrels_) looked over her shoulder with her neck as long as a llama, wings fluffing at the shoulders, razor sharp antlers tearing pieces of bark from tree boughs overheard and grinned white teeth at the struggling bug. Her eyes did not compliment that dark blue and green of her fish similar pelt, black as the dark side of the moon and glancing at Terry before continuing behind Damian.

Both Terry and Wolf shivered beneath either Batsuit or black fur, still listening to Lian half-heartedly as she teased Damian and made him bristle every other step.

He supposed that this was the archer's way of getting back at Damian on Deidre's behalf for the al Ghul and Wayne child laughing at her soul beast the other day for an amount of time that branched somewhere near three hours, not including snickering. After all, it wasn't in the blonde's nature to do anything that could either remotely lead to her untimely demise or insult anyone that she considered a high organism from herself (_this chart of people who she perceived to be better than her starting at Bruce and ending just slightly before Warhawk on the evolutionary scale. He knew this for fact after the last time Rex had tried to pull rank on a mission and she had, in basic terms, told him to go fuck himself—which both Terry and Flash gave her props for_,) so Lian and Irey and most everyone with a soft spot for Darling usually did it for her.

Not to say that Terry was against that. Not even a little.

* * *

It went a little without saying that when Klarion asked for Stephanie to come see him, she would be going to him as much as he would end up meeting her halfway. After all, unlike the other people who he enforced his ridiculous expectations upon, with the blonde he had a habit of realizing she was without magic (_a wonderful thought when he considered most beings, because they couldn't stop him from turning them to frogs, tools of witches inciting mischief or legends from fairy tales; not so much with her as he had actually pressed lips to her once and while he disliked the taste of Christmas on her, the touch had been almost welcome_) and couldn't just flick her fingers and appear next to him.

Tim was with her waiting in the parking lot of her old school, the witch-boy and blonde's usual meeting place, and was displeased overtly when the fig he had been tossing up and down in the air and into his palm (_sleek and dark, reminding Klarion of a heart after it's withered and changed into something usable for potions and changing one thing into another something worse_) became clenched tight within the confines of his technician's hands; skin the of the fruit cracked under the pressure and liquid from there turning down to splatter on dead grass and dirt pressed hard every day by children running from class to class.

The displeasure was directed at Klarion and not at the fig, though, so the witch-boy stayed three feet away from the former Robin when he appeared in the vicinity of Stephanie in a blaze of black smoke and beginner's baby magic to add to his style of becoming real again, "Blondie, it's been a dog's age!"

Stephanie sighed but smiled as Klarion hugged her around the middle, chastising Tim with her eyes when he made to start yelling like the uptight father figure he had become since raising three boys, getting brainwashed into turning into a dead psychopath, returning to part time League duty and keeping an eye on not just the new Batman but the new Quinn as well.

It was exasperating for her, therefore, when Klarion took that brief second of her head being turned to squeeze her rear with one hand before pulling away and smiling sharp teeth up at her.

* * *

"Do you have to walk so damn fast?"

The little brown bear cup that turned out to be Rosalie's Daemon panted behind the friend of the formerly government hunted NSA robot, both of them quite chagrined that neither agent West nor his own Daemon (_and who'd have thought he'd have one so big and clever looking? A black fox the size of a motorcycle that did occasionally pause for the younger pair while her other half just kept marching along the back alleys of Keystone City, anxious to get to a phone and either call Bennett or yell at someone in the League for this—it seemed about that time of the week_) seemed willing to answer any questions about how exactly either of them knew where they were going when usually West couldn't find his ass with a modern map.

Hazelnut coffee colored eyes looked back on the two as West paused to make sure the coast was clear before waving them to hurry on faster, his Daemon giving the two a brush stroke smile and picking the bear cub up in her mouth, ducking down without asking Ro and then depositing the cub on her shoulder was Ro was situated on the fox's ebony back, awkward in a fashion as she felt vaguely like she was doing something more wrong than usual.

"We apologize, Rosalie, but this is Keystone," Fox spoke, voice not unlike princess Diana of the Amazon's when she was speaking to members of the United Nations when she was trying to pacify the men as to just why they couldn't visit her island, "Next to Hub City and Gotham, this place has a rather high crime rate in spite of the Flash clan doing their best to change that. We don't want to get caught out in the open and Jay just wants to make sure Bennett doesn't blame him for this as well when it was entirely the Batclan's fault. He got yelled at enough this week, if you hadn't noticed."

Ro could give the fox that; West had been yelled at more than she actually noticed before even though most things that happened really weren't his fault.

Her bear cup hummed under his breath as West stepped over a pile of trash in another alley that included syringe needles and glass beer bottles broken to smithereens, hands in his pockets and awfully calm for the situation they were in as he led them to a slightly cleaner alley. Neither of them noticing that when Fox treaded on a piece of glass and it sliced her paw, his hand starting bleeding inside his coat pocket and he didn't even flinch.


	72. Appalling Housing

This is an attempt to reach further into that 'M' rating this fic has. I miss being darker for some weird reason.

* * *

_-:-  
Like a snake—that's expression from my country: "like snake hides its legs." Nobody can see them. Because I am ashamed.  
-Misha M. / Room 168, Flophouse: Life On the Bowery._

* * *

**Appalling** **Housing**-:-

_It took a very long time for Deidre to convince both Bruce and Terry that this particular venture would be the best way for her to gain the policemen's trust—granted, slowly and suspiciously—without being too close to Batman and tarnishing his good reputation; but she did convince them._

_That didn't mean they liked it, though, and they probably never would, given what Bruce remembered from the old days about the Bantery East End and what Terry remembered about the hotels and motels built, torn down and built again in the area from when he had been in the T Gang and wandered about with teenagers looking for a thrill through violence and some of them looking to score a cheaper and fairly cleaner way to get high._

_"They have to get used to me, one way or another," she'd explained to them, wrapped about the middle with Alfred's old apron and going about her self-imposed mission of making the manor a more friendly, clean place to be; the dried china plate in her hand being tucked back into the kitchen cupboard before her with nary a sound, "And I can't just keep running away when I see them and make them think I'm still a criminal."_

* * *

Coming back into the Bantery was something that Bullock and Sanchez wanted to do with their legs forward and not at all with the stupidity they recalled when they had been on foot patrol in their rookie days. Spouting grey coloring of the clouds above them didn't help with the mood, but, then, nothing could much improve anything in the East End; let alone when they were on their way to the Wine Daisy Hotel based on an anonymous tip over their phone lines in the MCU in fuzzy-cracking deep tones with high, sneaking tones that everyone in the world knew was a cover-up for a real voice on the other end so it couldn't be recognized.

It had given Sanchez the shivers when he'd picked up his watermarked phone, asked what was what and had pulled his ear away at the reply, "_**Dead bodies at apartment A-14 in the Wine Daisy Hotel. Come quickly before they start rotting**_."

The other end had gone dead with the ringtone one might consider reminiscent of church bells and Sanchez had slammed the phone back in its cradle with force Commissioner Gordon would frown at, remarking dryly on lack of money for equipment, and dragged Bullock out so quickly that he'd barely had time to put on his leather, deep cow in a barnyard brown jacket and ask what the problem was when Sanchez had nearly taken off in their cruiser without Bullock.

* * *

Again, the person that was supposed to always be awake to welcome in new customers or say good-bye to long-turn tenants was asleep off of what smelled like not a very good year in wine; his fat girth making his worn chair creek with each chortled inhale he took in for his smoker's lungs. Desdemona—Mona to her mother and lovers and not to anyone else, _ever_—Duquesne ignored him and walked up what was becoming an eerily familiar flight of stairs after the little white jacketed figure that drove her up the wall trying to figure out, when the detectives found the apartment raised to their attentions (_blue eyes looked approvingly as they entered the room to find a body or more,)_ and then vanished into thin air that had nothing but solid brick walls and iron barred windows in the way.

A naked young man, no older than the age of drinking, with peach fuzz skewing his facial features almost as much as the blank look in his eyes; the needle he'd used was still tucked into a bruised vein in his arm and when Alcana bent down before him to check for rigor mortis (_his thumb had a burn along the ridges from trying to make coffee on the MCU's secretary's old fashioned coffee maker; the red a glare and a hint to undue warmth in the room they stood in that had been without heating for over forty hours_,) Duquesne looked over the flophouse (_the seventh one in a month stretch they'd been lead to by—as they'd heard Batman call to her with what must have been a nick-name Duquesne didn't like, so she'd appear out of the dark on the police station roof and then flash away without saying a word—Darling_) room at data-files with half-filled sentences and paragraphs written in the striking heat of a clean heroin high or an especially low hit of opiates meant to give a slow drawl through the head.

"Ugh," Alcana groaned, wiping his hand on the end of his pant leg near his shoe—disgusting, stagnant sweat from the dead man smearing the fabric—before standing up to find Duquesne squinting down the hall where the white jacket girl had disappeared again (_there would be a next time though; the MCU detectives were learning that quickly after the last couple weeks_,) and continued, "Probably been dead at least three days. If we hadn't gotten called, the guy would have been growing mold soon."

* * *

"You know, if you're just calling in the ODs, suicides, natural deaths and the murders committed by people other than super crazies, you could just call downstairs in homicide."

The other end of the phone clicked and Bullock sighed as he hung the speaker and receiver back into its cradle, waving over to Sanchez the address for the Young White Hotel (_built so long ago that Bullock vaguely recalled a memory of his mother with him in a car on their way to a baseball game when he was still in junior high; her smile stretched when the radio stated in blaring, nasal voices that the hotel was finally switching hands from a long family line to a person of modest means hoping to make the place better. She'd flicked off the radio and when he'd asked what she was so happy about, she just said, "I arrested a bunch of skin-heads there once and was just hoping that the bad press would bring the owner down since he was housing a couple of the more violent men there on lowered rent when I was still in blues,")_ and the room number of a young woman that had been found with her wrists slit in a bathtub, but with bruising around her throat.

When they got to the hotel _(groaning about the temperature dropping near the place on a thermometer that stated it would be prudent to put on mittens and scarves because otherwise one could look forward to frostbite after exposure for more than twelve minutes,) _both men were shocked and severely disappointed in that quiet, inner way men had, when they found the china doll white colored not-one-of-the-Jokerz on the front stoop of the building. In her hands, wrapped tight and warm in a burgundy red blanket, and double held within her white jacket like the girl was a kangaroo, was a little baby that doubtless belonged to the woman reported dead.

"You couldn't have told us the woman had a kid?" Bullock almost growled, but stopped when Sanchez went ahead of him and _(this would be a real addition to the report they would end up handing to Barbara as Larkin bustled around the Commissioner's office watering plants, organizing files and taking orders to get lunch for Babs and her detectives)_ became the first of the detectives to actually come close to touching the "Anonymous Tipper" when she carefully handed him the sleeping baby and glared at Bullock. Her red gloved hand (_not the black one that always gave Bullock a question mark in the back of the head like he had been hit with a brick and woke up with mild blindness; the diamond white shapes along the edges like when he closed his eyes and pressed them together so hard the blood rushed to his head unpleasantly_) rose to her lips in a shushing pantomime as she opened the door to the hotel and lead them up to the body.

All business as usual, except…

* * *

_The rooms were claustrophobic and Terry couldn't imagine wanting to live in single room apartments like those in the Bantery that Deidre and he scoped out when the Jokerz or other baddies weren't acting up as much as usual; one bed, one window a room and maybe a few belongings that were carried in a suitcase or backpack under the bed, tantamount to self-imprisonment committed daily for the low cost of ten to fifteen dollars a day._

_Then again, he recalled as he opened another room to find no dead bodies, but walls covered in paper clippings that had words perhaps a schizophrenic would create by the way of making poetry—a lot of the people living in these places were at least a step above the completely homeless. They had a roof over their head and heating in this place __**("Sometimes it's like a family," Deidre smiled sadly over her shoulder, closing a door so it blocked the sight of a bed covered in tattered black sheets and a circular desk holding a coffee can filled with what smelled like bourbon that soaked into the stems of white oleander so that, perhaps to the deluded person who lived in that room, the plants would be happy,) **__which was better than death on the street while left in the open in Gotham._

_"I don't remember it being this bad," Batman muttered quietly as they both jumped across rooftops towards another flophouse; Quinn (**for Terry's life, he couldn't imagine how it was possible**) managing not to shiver as she landed in a mound of snow that reached up above her boots and covered her knees in ice cold before they opened the door on the roof to the insides of the building. The ice along the grooves of her kneecaps started melting instantly and Terry tried not to count all of the goose-bumps rising to the surface._

_"It's better than absolute fatality, I deduce, my good man," Quinn hummed backwards in a fake British accent, attempting to lighten the mood with mimicking old Sherlock Holmes actors; both of them hopping like rabbits over a missing floorboard in the staircase, perfectly in sync with their quiet exploration._

* * *

"**Your homicide detectives are worthless**."

Well, Duquesne supposed, at least conversations with the obviously fake voice were getting longer and not entirely unusual. Over the past two weeks that they had _not_ received any calls and had been unfortunate enough to have to pick up four cases offered by the anonymous voice to homicide detectives who had left them unsolved (_it was delightful when Commissioner Gordon had torn the slackers downstairs a new one; it had been pleasant to hear back from the voice over the phone_); the four officers were starting to get bored just chasing after the left-overs Batman left them.

"I agree," the smallest detective in the bull-pen said with ease; her hand going into her desk to pull out a notepad to write down whatever else the girl on the other end had to say, then snapping her fingers repeatedly to get Alcana's attention away from some teenager he had collared in an underground splicing fight ring they had broken up. It was difficult to get the ginger's attention since the girl was spliced with rattlesnake and her new tail kept creating sound that would fit into a mariachi band perfectly, "You can just call us from now on since, heh, getting information from them is like getting feathers back from a torn pillowcase that have flown away. I understand that you'd prefer that this bull-shit doesn't happen again."

"**Thank you for your understanding, Detective Duquesne**."

Dark eyes squinted a little at the knowledge the other knew her name, but she didn't make any threats, "Huh, that's a surprise. Do you know all of our names?"

"**In all of the precincts. I do my homework**."

"…Alright then, Anonymous, what have you got for us tonight?"

The voice distorter crackled from the dusky smoking dragon tone at the beginning of the information exchange and into something like ice cracking in a river if it could be translated into words, **"Golden Medal's Motel, room 42-C; possible over-dose on synthetic opium, but I won't rest easy until your coroner has a look at the poor young man."**

Duquesne wrote the message down, but didn't let her just hang up yet, "You know, we've all been wondering why a Joker would care about the forgotten destitute of the world. I mean, you don't take their money, that much is obvious-"

**"Please don't insult me by calling me that. And don't disrespect me because I choose to at least make an effort in helping out people most of your precinct ignore on a regular basis. The MCU is more intelligent than that."**

The voice distortion changed again, into a dark Russian accent with hints of a cat hissing along the edges like smoke in a 1950's dance lounge; Duquesne couldn't help but flinch. Sanchez passed by the side of her desk with another of the fight ring Splicers—a young man with tiger stripes and ox horns whose hands were sealed into the heavier cuffs the MCU had in stock for the sort that could break out easy.

"Okay, I won't call you a Joker," Duquesne nodded, though obviously it was invisible to the one on the other end of the phone, "But what should we call you? A person gains a little more respect around her if we don't think you're just a loon or a prank call."

"…**Quinn**," came the answer after a moment; bat echoes curdled the voice and the detective finally got her partner's attention by getting out of her seat, pulling Bullock in his chair with the round wheels on the bottom over to Alcana's desk and then yanked the ginger by the scruff of his uniform and pinned him to her desk with one hand, "**I'll be at the motel for another twenty minutes. Good-bye**."

The line went dead and Duquesne released her partner to hang up the phone, pull on her overcoat and then explain on their way down the stairs.

The buttons on the phone all glowed red when the detectives were out of sight and then blacked slowly out, one-by-one, until they figured into a distorted smiley-face before going dead completely.


	73. White Matter

_-:-  
All I really want… Is to not be here.  
-Elizabethtown._

* * *

**White** **Matter**-:-

"Nanna, Nanna, Nanna… please, make it stop hurting… Oh, oh, it hurts, it hurt… Nanna…"

The blood between her ears that could be felt from the tips along the grooves of her eyes and into the center of the back of her skullcap were hurting again and Delia, with little preamble (**from struggling out of the hotel bed she had been renting for the last few days in Metropolis**) falling onto the clean, pine-scent hardwood floor, made for the bathroom with white and tan coloring. Her hands gripped the rim of the open toilet and she shoved most of her face so far inside that when her insides burst from the bottom of her sore stomach and into the bowl, water splashed up and doused the lining of her chin and neck in cold.

There was blood inside the putrid yellow of what must have been her bile and it coated the tip of her tongue with rotted sensations one might feel after going into the dentist and tasting the new filling of cleaned out cavities, but Delia couldn't think about that. Her head hurt and her stomach felt awful and she couldn't quite remember why she was in Metropolis…

* * *

One word came out in a hiss once the news was delivered to Barbara and it came through her teeth like threatening white steam coming out of a blazing inferno kind of heat. The datapad with the information transferred to her from Arkham Asylum via Joan Leland sat on the edge of her desk where she had almost flung it into the glass vase holding the blue dahlias and purple aster that detective Alcana had brought in for her as though it would make up for the fact that he hadn't finished his paperwork over the last weekend like he was supposed to (_later, her magnificent brain would remember that one flower was a symbol of instability or insanity and the other bloom was a symbol of patience and she would quietly snort at how Alcana had managed to screw up that sort of thing_) and like he said he would.

"Shit. Shit. Shit."

The datapad was filled with medical reports on who Joan still considered just Jane Doe and one particular layout on the screen blinked bright blue hues every few minutes as a reference to urgency for medical treatment. A blood test that had been taken when Delia had been sent to Arkham that had taken forever because of certain abnormalities that weren't easy to decipher in regular testing. They had to send it to a Wayne-Powers testing facility and they had sent it back only after some jackass had shown it to his students in a lecture on "Abnormalities of the Anomalous" for various reasons.

_**'Patient disease testing: Positive for Syphilis . Unknown/Mutated strain. Advancement of the disease: Unsure.'**_

Barbara removed her glasses from the bridge of her nose and set the lenses on her desk, rubbing the little dent that the spectacles left and then traced the lining of her hair to calm herself down as she thought about all the people that Delia had slept with over the years and how the hell she was going to find them so she could bring them in and treat them with Penicillin before they spread Delia's mutated strain around to other Jokerz sects like a plague. God knew the Jokerz had sex with all the other Jokerz—they were worse than rabbits and she could count on both hands the times when she and he squad had busted into one of their hideaways and scoured rooms when some of them _weren't_ in the middle of screwing each other.

The only thing she could console herself with was that when Joan had sent her the file, the doctor had stated that all the Jokerz currently situated in Arkham were getting the treatment for Syphilis, regardless of whether or not they remembered sleeping with the psychotic bitch. J-Man had thrown a fit and had to be held down by three nurse aids before they'd stuck him with a needle in the ass.

Sighing, the Commissioner hesitated for only the briefest of moments, before lifting her phone from the desk and dialing up a personal number that she had more often than not told her MCU detectives to never call.

"…Hi, Conner. Um, can you put Deidre on the phone?"

* * *

"And here, I believe, is how a baker would say, 'Screw you,' don't'cha think?"

"…Oh, my sweet Jesus."

Barry continued his forced grin as Batman hung back behind the three guests that the Dark Knight had absolutely insisted would be the answer to their problem; the black of his arms crossed and his eye lenses narrowed as Ghoul and Woof looked all the more panicked as they continued to follow the protector of the Gem Cities, that often made their lives hell, further into the Metro Tower. Melanie Walker seemed to be cooler about it, helping her boyfriend (_the Flash still couldn't quite tell what the petite blonde saw in the undead looking young man, except the fact that under all of those ruddy—disgustingly creepy—looking clothes he must have looked awesome_) sidestep the muffins and gypsy crèmes and (mother of God) nine tier sized cakes that had been clustering around the halls of the tower that had been cleared by most of the other heroes when Conner Kent begged Tim to take his house guest somewhere other than the farm that still had a working stove and lots of baking ingredients_ ("I can't get to the door unless I float—You've got to move her somewhere else. PLEASE,") _and J'onn had been removed from on account of immediately dropping to the tiled floor when Tim granted the request and transferred the girl to the tower. His telepathy and, by default, his head couldn't take all the internal screaming and activity going on.

Ghoul's eyes opened wider as his gaze settled on a green tea mint French snack that he knew for an absolute truth only appeared from the hands of their mutual friend when bad, bad, bad, _bad_ news came around.

_(Her hands were shaking, fingers wiggling against the silver mixing bowl brought out from the pit of the cupboards that held their cookware like they were wingless birds hoping for feathers to warm them before they died. After seeing a fellow gang member that they had all known for a little over a year die and then having to drag his body out into an alley for better hiding later, Ghoul really couldn't blame the girl for allowing nerves to get the better of her._

_She had too much in her grasp, though and he expected that one of the cold objects from the fridge would wiggle free from the flour and sugar soon._

_Bending over the side of the kitchen counter just at the right moment, Ghoul caught the deep colored, brown speckled chicken egg the ragdoll girl accidentally dropped. His hand was just padded and wiry enough that the shell didn't break and Deidre looked grateful as she set the bowl filled with the un-mixed ingredients meant to create something delightful from fear on the counter._

_"Maybe you should rest," the blonde computer expert suggested mildly, pretending not to care—which wasn't easy, actually, as it should be, "We'll be heading to Wayne Enterprises in just two hours. You shouldn't really be making food."_

_Dee Dee shrugged, strong image pulling up to make her seem more like she didn't care—which was almost impossible when she had to keep reminding herself to breathe in and out, "It's something to do. I can't just… Do you want chocolate chips and ginger cookies?"_

_He tried not to sigh as he set the egg gently into the silver bowl.)_

"Why didn't you call us sooner?"

Batman's eyes narrowed, annoyed that after having seen the goth in nothing or less than his underwear twice, he was growing balls and a spine to compliment new courage in himself.

"You're here now."

Woof lifted a hand to keep Ghoul from saying something snide, grapping at his shirt and pointing towards the sounds of pots and pans banging around, as well as the cracking of empty, dry, eggshells smashing inside of a sink.

"Yes, we are," Woof replied to Terry. His Russian accent almost soothing in the emptiness of the usually bustling hallway.

"I don't suppose you have a bucket around here somewhere?" Melanie questioned as they all gave a little jolt when white sounded like china glass used for teacups hit the floor and made the unmistakable sound of shattering on impact, "I think we might need some chilled ice water."

"For what?"

The way Barry cocked his head as they turned down another hallway was almost adorable, but the two blondes and the hyena boy didn't pay mind, all considering near each other like they were instinctively going over an internal battle plan. Ghoul answered him absently, "For her head."


	74. The Fox and the Glove

Okay, let's take a step back by taking a step forward here. I meant what I said and I said what I meant, but I have been looking forward to this, to some small, masochistic degree, for a while and finally decided to put to use that 'Mature' rating. And I hate myself for writing this, too. So, God bless **Kirra** **kills** for her advice on this chapter.

WARNING: Prepare for certain headcanons to surface like the plague. Or die like its victims because, lo and behold, this is a sex chapter.

* * *

_-:-  
A little danger, a little risk. Feel your heart race. Listen to it. That's the sound of being alive.  
-The Child Thief, by Brom._

* * *

**The Fox and the Glove**-:-

_Some things, in life and in the lining of the cosmos all around, were a matter not of '__**If'**__ but '__**When'**__ and Delia knew for a fact when she first went out, that first night on the town, with liquor in her blood and her bones slicking under her skin for action and adventure that her grandmother was too nervous about to ignore and her sister was far too stupid __**(like a cow—slow as she was with moving through life like it would move heaven and earth when the time was right and she could act then, then, then)**__ to partake in, that her '__**When'**__ involved sex._

_When this_ '_**When'**__ was crossed __**(not wholly unpleasant, her blood from between her legs slicking over leather and cheap fabrics, crusting dark brown more slowly than the blood from her finger)**__ it was not tremendously unexpected that her ideas started changing almost immediately. By the next night, she was more in tune with what was going on in her head. By the next week, she preferred to venture about the Gotham underworld by herself, rather than have Deidre follow along like a puppy that wanted to be kicked by a master or clipped by a car so it could walk with a limp and be more deserving of pity. By the end of the month, when she got her period and just stood over the bowl of the toilet, unable to move because the dark spots spinning in the water were just so much more interesting than listening to Nanna go over the next college she was sending the twins to __**(another Ivy League faculty that they'd learn the gist of and be taken out of before graduation so their records would be deemed unimportant and thrown away—Delia still remembered that they had to learn advanced physics from some pathetic wimp of a man whose wife often called just to harangue him,)**__ it became very certain that she would not be staying with Nanna for much longer; she would stay with the Jokerz and do practically whatever she wanted on a more permanent basis._

_Nanna always gave her a look, as though to say she was expecting something to happen at some point, she just didn't know '**When**.'_

_Getting out of Arkham after the last fiasco with the League and wandering through China Town in New York with red decorating practically everything, from all of the doors to the bodega rafters where old men played Mahjong and smoked long ivory colored pipes that gave off the most relaxing smells, Delia blinked up curiously as an odd bristling came to the tip of her toes and then travelled up her spine until it ended in a warm sort of feeling behind her eyes._

_She absently rolled up her denim jacket sleeve and looked to see her moonlight, chalk colored skin had about twenty-thousand goosebumps needled up from her veins and the like._

_Delia hadn't gotten sick in a while, she didn't even have a tickle at the back of her throat, so she took a left down the street—long leaning skyscrapers touched the dark clouds that threatened rain on the Big Apple, but were poxed with the small apartments and houses that the Chinese had refused to give up at the turn of the new century; made it easier for her to blend in among the odd people with her long-drawn black hooded sweatshirt covering her up along with the shadows—on a lark and went to buy some spray paint that was excellent with bright blues and the kind of yellow that could be seen in dragon cavities._

_There was a feeling in her that said another '**When'** had come about, and for her it would be delightful to find out the full details later on—oh, she would find out eventually—but for now, celebration was in order._

_A large painting would be a present for celebration, with a little bourbon to settle the goosebumps and smooth out the edges. She'd had her eye on an abandoned housing unit that was half-burnt to the ground and had the roof caved in like a ruined soufflé._

* * *

His job as Batman required heroic progress, but no matter how much he was pressed for such, he couldn't reach perfection.

After high school, during college and after his twenty-first birthday, this became very, very depressing. Not to say he blamed so many people for either looking up to him like he was planted on a pedestal or looking down on him like he was little more than a moth dead on the sidewalk after a rain storm, but the pressure had gotten to be too much after Dana had gotten a scholarship to a high end college over in England and Max had gotten accepted to Harvard Robotics and he was stuck in Gotham with Bruce growing older than Terry hadn't ever imagined and everyone else living their own lives as he filled into being Batman.

Terry had lost two children in a gang shoot-out between Jokerz in from Metropolis and Blight after he'd had a particularly antagonizing argument with Paxton. Batman had been able to save most everyone in the area _(five city blocks, three buildings razed into oblivion and scorch marks where bullet holes also were trampled over when the police and emergency service vehicles finally showed up; the red symbol of his suit reflected in understanding blue eyes, both old and young, when he deposited the burnt bodies of two ten years olds he'd found under a collapsed wall Blight had tried to escape through; the police would have to find the parents and give them an explanation) _but even after such a time, children dead were still something that broke him down so easily.

Barry found him an hour after Terry had gone through the events with Bruce and tried to get Terry to feel better by taking him out to dinner and a stiff drink.

"I don't understand why you would blame yourself," Barry said over his own shot glass, fingers twiddling with the little swizzle stick as Terry looked with glass eyed sorrow at the mirror that decorated the back of the bar, lights from behind them bouncing everywhere to illuminate women grinding on poles to earn their living when they also decided which customers were worth losing their tankinis over, "Those kids were dead before they were burnt. Drug overdose, according to Barbara and the coroner that went over them."

Perhaps Barry knew this wasn't the thing to say to make Terry feel better as the slightly younger man turned his head to the ginger in astonished misunderstanding of events. Words slipped from his mouth like statements but took root with questions turned inwards toward disgust. Like the apple that fell on Sir Isaac Newton, the inside of it heavy with rot and maggots.

"They overdosed? They were younger than my brother and they…overdosed…"

Barry mirrored the sadness settling in Terry, notch for notch and ordered them both another round to toast to Gotham's shitty odds, her existence proving to assist in culminating more and more deaths, young more often than old, than any other city patrolled by good men and women in costume.

* * *

It had been a year since he'd actually touched Dana and had been something like two since he'd romantically touched any other sort of woman, just for a kiss, at all.

A year is a long time and ten shots of very heavy and burning alcohol is a lot to give false courage when Terry was feeling the most miserable he had in a long time, walking along a familiar road made of just old dirt rather than asphalt; the sound of Barry parking the Dark Knight's car, speaking hushed tones to the owner of the only house in the woods for moment for confirmation that Terry would alright for the evening and then running back to Central a sort of assurance to the liquid courage pulsing through him.

He didn't live with his mother anymore, and he didn't live with Bruce; he lived in his own apartment and he had told Barry to take him there where he could wallow in peace, but the speedster had insisted that Terry be with someone for the evening so he wouldn't do anything stupid, like call Dana when she had been ignoring him for the last five months and beg her to come home while crying like a loser. It wasn't dignified, but it was important.

Soft hands that had, for the last three years, done all manner of things to keep him alive and try to keep him happy _(both pinky fingers on each hand had been painted the kind of blue Terry had often seen Hawaiian villagers use for the ink in their tattoos; very soft and inviting)_ touched softly against the dark brown of his leather jacket and then gripped tighter when he flinched on instinct and took an intoxicated step backwards, almost wobbling so much that he would have fallen backwards on his ass and bruised his tailbone.

"Easy there, Terry," the blue eyed blonde spoke in hush against the wind whistling through the trees all around them, large branches kneading each other closest to the house like they were shaking hands, "I've got the couch made up, so you can sleep in my bed for the night; sleep off that obviously very good liquor and won't have my living room windows glaring hellfire at you in the morning."

"Don' wanna…put you out…" Terry slurred, deep rumbling in the middle of his gut reminding him of the moment of foolishness earlier with Barry when he'd taken to a bottle of tequila with the worm still inside and then swallowed a handful of the stale peanuts with some of the shells still attached.

There was a vague awareness in the back of his mind that she swung his arm over her shoulder because he wasn't able to even lift his feet to get up the porch steps without help, and he was a massive dead weight compared to her handrail skinniness, but she just smiled faintly wider when she toed the door open and made up the staircase with the ease of someone who was much like Barda in that bench pressing a ton in dead weight barely slowed her down, "You're not, don't worry about that."

His elbow cracked against the stairs handrail, a moderately annoyed groan escaping his mouth.

"I can t-take the… s-sofa. It's your bed."

"Tonight it's yours," and the authority in her at this statement left little room to argue as she prevented him from spinning on the top of the staircase like a bruised grasshopper deciding if flying would be good for what ailed him.

She tightened down her hand on his shoulder to open the door to her room _(years now since her sister had left the place like smoke on the wind and since her grandmother was taken away by coroner, and still her room was the only one used—dust didn't settle in it for long and it was subject to a light turn at least once a week to keep bedbugs away, shades constantly opened at night and closed in the day so that the sunlight didn't leave a bleached square on her covers while the other two bedroom doors in the house were locked tight and the insides left to all manner of things; small rats and colonies of mice with an onslaught of wheedling insects with teeth could have taken up residence in them and still, those doors were locked)_ and carefully shifted his weight so he was laid face first on the bed. His arms were outstretched like some exhausted five year old, feet from toes to ankle too big to stay in the lining of the mattress.

There was a slight objectionable murmur when his boots were unlaced and removed, dropping to the floor that he recalled to be clean with the scent of pine or lemon from the agents Deidre used as often as she could since she hated the smell she dragged in after missions with the League or patrols along Gotham itself—sewer stench, mildew from sitting in place at Gotham Bay for hours on end, ash debris clinging to her sweat and blood and the like of that. The murmur turned to appreciation when his socks were also removed _(he heard her toss them into her hamper with dirty jeans and her underwear, which made him blush for about a quarter of a second)_ and one of her hands pulled her pearl colored covers up from the bottom of the bed to drape over him, her other hand removing his leather jacket with him doing as much of his part as he could being that the alcohol had climbed all the way up to his psyche and being sloshed didn't help with motor control.

Once the jacket was entirely removed, Terry's arms limply hanging off the edge of the bed as a result, she pulled the covers the rest of the way to his shoulders and turned to hang up the jacket on the back of her door _(the jacket was heavy in content and smelled of both his own sweat and the liquor he'd consumed and sagged tremendously on the little silver peg nailed to the wooden framing)_ before heading back downstairs to the nest of blankets she'd made of the couch. There was no light she'd had to turn off as she hadn't needed to flick the switch on her way up, as used as she was to her family home.

Terry's eyes followed her hair, half in a sloppy bobby-bun and half loose and waving against her light silk nightdress he hadn't even been aware she'd been in until that moment. It meant she'd been woken up by Barry calling her and had gone to the trouble of fixing things up for Terry when she was exhausted herself.

"…I don't get why you put up with me…"

She was already halfway down the stairs, but still called back lowly so she didn't give him a headache when answering, "Heh, what can I say; it's hard to say no to your rugged good looks and smooth talking."

He could hear her plop herself on the sofa, but didn't doze off like he was supposed to immediately after the tiny 1950's radio she kept on the side table in the den was roused into wakefulness, streaming fuzzy melodies of long days backward. It was not a lullaby, but it was soft and sweet and one of his hands absently brushed over her stuffed animals she had neglected to remove from beside the pillows _(two of them, both copied reference from vids her grandmother had let her watch when the twins were young; a little pig with a dark brown tuft of hair atop its head and a collar around its neck with a tag that read 'Babe' perched beside a life-sized stuffed ginger and white tom kitten with an overly large scarf around its neck and 'Banjo' stitched near the scarf's tassels)_ when his ears picked up her humming to the music.

_"…We were young, didn't have a care… so where, oh where, did it go… Once upon a time…"_

* * *

_The heart is made out gold at first, but then Delia uses the lightest shade of blue she bought to spray in veins that seemed to turn necrotic in misfortune of age._

_It isn't in her nature to paint something very sentimental, but sometimes she likes to draw from the inner wellspring of her personal taste and find something honey-thick with sugar that can leave an imprint in the physical world that people don't, on precedent, run away in fear from._

_J-Man, waiting at the apartment they had squatted in for the last week **(not a difficult thing when the renters were out of town on business to China for another month with nobody paid to take care and make sure dust didn't gather or people like the Jokerz didn't break in. As far as people like that were concerned, a junky could burn the place to the ground and it wouldn't be a bother—the place was insured)**__ would be disappointed that she had spent the last four hours painting a yellow skinned freak of nature with a red boa and green speedos offering up his heart to a frowning knave when Delia could have been back and eating the Chinese food they had in the fridge with him, but he would get over it._

_"Hmm, you know," Delia grinned quietly—almost like her sister, which would disgust her if she wasn't in a good mood and wasn't really thinking about it, "I still can't seem to get your face right. Nanna always described you as less teeth and more shine than grandpa."_

_The romanticized and fantastical vision of the Creeper, heart in his hands and still trying to get Harley's affection through extremes, didn't respond to Delia's observation. And he wouldn't, even as she started in new details to the red boa curving his back and making him look like the Beast that had a spell cast upon him when he was a prince for refusing kindness to an enchantress wearing a beggar woman's skin._

* * *

He supposed that he shouldn't have woken up only two hours after he'd finally fallen asleep, but he didn't drink as often as most people of his age group, so things often happened that he couldn't really understand when he was sloshed and unable to think straight. Like realizing he had to piss and seeing when he stumbled to the bathroom _(fuck, the tiles were always freezing in there and bit at his bare feet every single time he was over at Deidre's to spend the night when he couldn't get home or was practically forced to stay when his friend decided he couldn't possibly drive) _to take care of business that he had a hard-on.

If he had been sober, there was no way in hell he would have done what he did next_ (well, okay, that was a lie—after three years, things happened, often because of emotions running high, Dana being emotionally and physically unavailable and just pure, tremendously regrettable stupidity)_ but staring down at his length-and really, he just wanted to go flaccid so he could use the toilet without spraying the place like an idiot _(so his alcohol filled mind seemed to think) and _making things more difficult for himself—he recalled that Deidre was not a sound sleeper and probably wouldn't mind helping him out.

It wasn't as if it was something she was totally against when it came to him. They had occasion to do _things_ together like two years previous when Dana had broken up with him again and he had been certain that she was for real and not coming back; Max had been out with a Green Lantern that wasn't Kai-Ro, helping with something involving extreme security on another planet and Deidre hadn't flinched away when he'd been a pathetic, sobbing mess. Kissing her and then…what happened after had cleared his head. And the year after that, he had almost died—Damian had almost died, too—and the blonde had been there again, though he'd felt guilty the next morning, recalling how long he'd kept his tongue in her mouth, when Dana had called him up and Deidre had encouraged him to go on, give it another try; as if she was just a point of transition before moving on to something better.

In the morning her would probably hate himself _(he __**WOULD**__ hate himself)_ but he groaned and walked out of the bathroom, trying not to bump the walls and send some of the pictures _(new, framed prints of Taoist symbols for integrity, righteousness, wisdom, loyalty and benevolence that Kai-Ro had helped Deidre find after going to Nanda Parbat and having a brief conversation with the goddess of the temple) _falling off of their nails to crash and break on the ground as he descended the stairs slowly; even drunk still able to recall which of the steps made noise and avoiding them.

The small radio wasn't turned off, but the volume wasn't even really a whisper, only picking up the frequency for the oldies station every half an hour or so, but Deidre still looked pretty much asleep _(hair out of the little tie it had been in and cascading under her head, around her shoulders, lacing the blankets and pillows and settled on the floor; one of her arms crossed over her chest like a shield and the other one holding the back of her head like its own pillow, legs stretched to their full length, but still not long enough to reach the end of the sofa)_ when he paused behind the couch and leaned over the back of it to see her.

His big hand—fuck, what part of him wasn't friggin' huge compared to her, anyway—reached over the couch to tap her forehead, but he didn't get the chance to make contact with her skin when twin pairs of burning eyes opened and glared at him from their positions on Deidre's stomach and on the glass coffee table that complimented the sofa and made Terry blink stupidly at not having seen either Hades or Persephone. They hadn't even started purring until they were both looking at him; Hades with his front paws tucked before his chest and with his lips pulled back much like his father Alfred or even like Damian—his large feline form almost, but not quite, blocking Terry's eye-line to the picture of the pets' mistress and her so-very-close-if-only-she-would-come-out-of-the-bi-sexual-closet ALMOST girlfriend in a candid shot that Barry had taken at their work.

Persephone yawned, teeth shown with her lips stretched backwards like some big cat after napping in the African plains, sedate and beautiful, but more than willing to scream bloody murder_ (Terry was aware, she had done it before when her brother or Deidre were in danger_) the second Terry made contact with Deidre's person.

Terry blushed lightly _(maybe it was his blood trying to decide if his brain wanted to function properly before continuing with this,) _and walked around the couch only after tucking himself back into his pants, and made for the kitchen where he knew Deidre kept her plastic bags, olive oil and ultra absorbent paper napkins.

As pathetic as it was and as drunk as he was, perhaps a little sense could be rammed into him by guilt set in through judgmental, highly intelligent pets. He could sate himself with his right hand with the help of old memories and have a less guilty conscience in the morning, he guessed.

* * *

_Delia will admit that when she found out that her sister lost her virginity entirely by accident to someone she absolutely hated __**(delicious—absolutely, tremendously, entirely worth the time she'd taken to do some digging around after the Justice League's Christmas party where, three days later, Aquagirl had gone back to the ocean for six months; and Warhawk had gone off planet to reclaimed Thanagar to, as he explained it to the news and to his parents and to everyone that would listen that hadn't kicked his ass two days after the party, assist in the rebuilding process; and Deidre walked with a slight shuffle from loss of her hymen—bwahaha!)**__ she was a little bit over the moon. But when her little sister started going about the process of dating…she had to kinda put a stop to that. The elder sister was the town slut, and she was going to keep it that way._

_Tromping through the alley to home, Delia recited the rules to the letter she had deposited en mass to the League much like communist propaganda on multi-colored fliers dropped from a plane flown by Chucko when she'd told him to either do that or go talk to the Russians in Gotham's docking district after she'd ripped them off._

_**"First rule: You cannot have sex with Bat Guano or the Scarlet Dumbass. They are your friends that act like your brothers and that would be incest.**_

**Second rule: Your purpose among the Justice Losers Unlimited is to be consort and pushover. If they hook you up with someone, it cannot be another League member. Think of what kind of children you would have!**

**Third rule: If you and your dearies figure out that you have some kind of weird fetish that you want to try out before going out into the world, try it on each other and—"**

_Her phone started the vibrating it seemed to do a lot when she was almost ten feet from her building and she sighed, picking it out of her pocket and pressing it to her ear, "What is it, Jeffrey?"_

_"I thought you were going to be late, so I'm calling now," J-Man said from the other end of the line, the sound of something frothing in the background that could only be him cleaning the dishes out of the sink out of boredom rather than just being more useful than a fancy sex toy for the woman he was calling, "Will it be takeout or eating in. There's still some of that noodle crap I haven't been able to butcher with my cooking yet."_

_Her tongue clicked against her white teeth, personality bigger than any other in that area of town, even if she's just wandering back home and trying to avoid the chance of getting wet by the accident of some Chinese or Vietnamese or Tai housewife tossing old water full of grey and brown bits of dirt and well working soap that was best for the environment (lemon was what she could always smell along the streets with a sort of boiled evaporation the moment the liquid soaked the grounds) from a rusted pot or bucket; her green head bobbing up and down as her long legs stretched and stepped out and into the shelter of awnings—most of them the same red color of her lips and the blood so often found under her nails (though, not today)._

_"Nah," she mocked into the phone, sounding like a sheep caught in a wire and, though not in front of her, J-Man was cringing at the noise and she could almost feel the tension in his fingers that almost caused him to drop one of the teacups he was drying, "Call takeout from Ruby House; I have this weird craving for Cantonese tonight."_

* * *

He hadn't wanted to leave stains on Deidre's mattress that would make her very uncomfortable when she no doubt washed the linen after he left the house, but Terry had also wanted assistance with the act of holding himself tight and trying to think of something helpful while sitting on the toilet. Door locked, black trash bag under him between his feet like a vessel to be taken away, napkins tucked around the plastic like a sloppy nest to soak up his semen and the olive oil dripping in his palm as he eased his back into the pillow his head had rested on just minutes earlier (_better to have grabbed the pillow than grabbing one of the stuffed animals_) and the smell of Deidre's perfume and shampoo wafted around to assist him in this secret venture.

Rubbing the oil into his skin where it was most sensitive to the mild chill of the liquid, Terry quietly counted up from one relationship and down to the last time the two human occupants of the house had had sex without getting caught and judged for it, making it the better of the two episodes they'd had together that involved no use of a condom _(cartwheels had been performed and little dances with the echo of "I'm walkin' on SUNSHINE!" had bounced around the halls of the League and Wayne Manor and Damian's mountainside and Deidre's own home when she'd gone into the gynecologist when she hadn't gotten a period for four months only to find out they would be few and far between as it appeared she was sterile…barren…Terry couldn't remember the right word, but basically she couldn't ever have kids)_ and three whole rounds that left them sore in quite a good way.

He had been with Dana for as long as he could remember on and off and on and off. Deidre had her first, rather unfortunate and extremely short, relationship of a whole two weeks with Max on a lark suggestion from Terry when the people Barry tried hooking her up with were all men and mostly untrustworthy and he'd given up on trying when he'd run out of people he'd even vaguely known on his own mission to get Deidre a relationship that lasted a whole seven months.

Terry had enjoyed those few short amounts of time he'd been with Melanie, especially since she was in a situation beyond her control and he felt so much that they understood each other, even when he kept her in the dark and all the better that turned out to be when he found out she was with Ghoul and they fit so much better just because there was no need for secrecy that could get each other killed if let loose. His blonde friend had not enjoyed the attention she had gotten from much of her police department on her eighteen birthday that had lead to her almost blowing up on detectives Alcana and Sanchez that was, thankfully stalled and shut off when detective Duquesne saved her the trouble since her annoyance at the spectacle of her colleagues and friends chasing after someone that had grown quietly on Duquesne over the years made her opinions _so_ much easier to grasp and cringe at.

His pace picked up on his mistreatment of himself when Terry recalled the first time he'd kissed his friend. At the time, she had just detached herself from a little, whirlwind type of dating period between herself and Lucius Fox Junior after he'd found her interesting during a time he and Barbara's husband had been working together on something having to do with the Fox industries where she'd always been around to help Sam at Barbara's request and she had found him interesting, for a short phase, as well.

_(Dana had left, as she often did those days, in a huff of indignation at Terry being so absent in her life and so often lately and had taken her things from their shared apartment __**[he had committed to her, how could she doubt that? They had been living together for over half a year]**__ and gone to stay with Chelsea until she could make up her mind on things. She had said things of the nature of, "It's not that I don't think you love me like I love you, Terry; I don't. It's just that I can't put myself out for you forever, waiting for you to decide if Mr. Wayne is more important, if your work is more important, than I am. I just…I can't do this Terry—it's not fair to either of us if we don't… I just can't deal right now…"_

_He had been angry when Deidre and Max had gone looking for him when he hadn't picked up his communicator and had stayed that way until Max had left to take care of some things as Oracle, since she was as stubborn as he was, but didn't like her asking questions and him being silent with his hands in tight fists on his knees while he just sat on his couch—his and Dana's, he had to remind himself; both of them had paid equally for the big, cushy red and white thing—and glared out the window. Deidre had stayed, quiet and understanding and made him some of the food that, left any longer, would have gone bad._

_When she'd fried the bacon he hadn't even remembered being there—"This was paid for when we were off on Korugar, Terry. Dana bought this."—and also made up an omelet, he'd finally realized what had happened and had sunk further into his seat in misery and just so much rose to the surface with realization, also, that it was getting so hard to do anything for Gotham and the rest of the world while trying to keep his own life._

_He had said, "Bruce had it so easy, being able to close himself off," and when she'd given him a rather stern, but still not quite disagreeing look, he'd hated himself and, though he didn't like to think on it, broken down in the weight of the world seeming to lay itself on him like it so often felt._

_Deidre stayed quiet, but set the food to the side and tried to calm him down, saying helpful things of reminders of the lives he'd saved and the criminals he'd brought to justice and the like…)_

Terry sucked in his breath as a jolt ran through him and the clear, crystal fragment of memory when he'd laid his lips on Deidre's and had been drowsily reassured by her response and her not at all tasting like Dana or Melanie—and he moved onto the real, delightful night they'd shared after his near death along with Damian that was so very secret and therefore not at all something he even deigned to think on unless he was alone, passing the time and the thought of Dana wasn't doing it for him.

His head tilted sideways, closer to the pillow and he could breathe in the proper traces of Deidre's Sunshine and Opium and a brief flash of the smell that clung to her hair followed that—a bulky, unnatural scent, certainly, but sort of comforting in the ways clean and dry clothes in a basket were when he was a little kid and he and his brother drove his mother crazy bounding into the laundry room, snatching the basket away to the living room and dumping the clean stuff out to roll in it and bask in the warmth and the smell.

His throat sort of made a noise similar to gagging, but without the unpleasantness as one hand worked his length and the other one maneuvered around his heft below it, pinching and juggling them like eggs held together with a sheepskin condom filled with boiling water.

_(He was bloody and torn up from the activity on the planet where Darkseid still ruled—blind and almost deaf and having to bow low and often enough towards Orion, but still alive and trying to make a nuisance of himself towards Earth by taking Superman in hopes of brainwashing him again—after saving Clark, but Damian was worse off and Terry just needed to take his mind off of what Damian had sounded like with that little machine [no bigger than one of those hatpins Deidre had shown him in an art gallery showed in a theme from the 1800's with little roses made of bronze and silver decorating the tips] had been stuck to him and started electrocuting him and cutting him along the very first layers of his skin and seemed to try freezing his organs._

_Terry felt filthy with Damian's blood on him that had soaked through the Batsuit and had torn the black thing off of him the moment he had teleported from the Metro Tower and into his own apartment. It had fallen with an ugly sound on his bathroom floor and he was actually grateful that Dana was gone again so he didn't have to be careful with the suit and he could just go and vomit in his toilet bowl and then turn the heated water in the shower to scorching and clean himself and clean himself and clean himself and then pause when he heard the door open and found Deidre there like she always seemed to be when he needed someone quiet and understanding._

_Max was there as his best friend, always the one with advice and knowing how to get out of something beyond his own abilities—his rock; Barry was there like many of the Speedsters towards the Bats, to take Terry's mind at racing intensity from one thing to another and open a window that Terry could find—paper for origami or sketches or letters; Deidre was warm or cold with a personality under the surface that he could only get to if she thought he could handle it—water that he finds or sees or feels is always there._

_The blonde had just been in to check on him and clean up and be a shoulder to lean on, but didn't seem to object when he'd stepped soaking and steaming hot from the shower and taken her to bed; his hands removing her clothing and her not missing much of a step on the way with opening the door and making sure the drapes were closed and being very receptive to what he did._

_His hands had wandered over her figure, feeling the small breasts that made Dana's seem huge. She had been quiet when she found his stiffening length and frigged it like a professional in the Red Light district but inhaled and made the most endearing, adorable sounds when he found the slick opening between her legs and actually managed to find that cluster of nerves that had twice the amount his entire penis had; finger rubbing it quickly until she was wired up with sensation and words didn't need to be exchanged when he bent over her and she shifted onto her stomach to allow for much better access…)_

His fingers were sticky and Terry realized he was finished only after his teeth left the pillow he'd stolen away from the bedroom. He'd made noise in the finish, but thank god it probably wasn't enough to wake Deidre up from her place on the couch—though her cats (_he still couldn't believe Colin had convinced Damian they were better off with the blonde in her forest than with the older heroes; the brother and sister cats driving Alfred insane with Persephone screaming for some tomcat to get her pregnant, __**fucking damn them all,**__ and Hades being locked in the basement rather than give into instinct and attack his father or something worse)_ he could hear hissing near the door in distaste and purring full of amusement.

Shifting around once his hardness faded and went back where it was supposed to be, Terry wiped his hands with the paper napkins and tied the evidence up in the trash bag, tucking it deep underneath the debris of the small trash bin Deidre kept behind the toilet full of old tampons and pad and wads of toilet paper and used Q-tips.

He also removed the pillow from behind his back and set it on the laundry hamper while he lifted the toilet seat and was grateful for the flow of yellow fluid that could finally come out without splashing everywhere and ruining Deidre's clean tiled floor and the like.

Terry had to jiggle the handle of the toilet before it would flush entirely—it stalled no matter what Deidre did to fix it, so she had more or less just told visitors that the thing would give them problems and left it at that—and as the water receded downwards, he closed the lid so if Deidre needed to use it in the morning, she wouldn't fall in and yell at him afterwards.

He still felt a little bad, using his friend as a fantasy image, but he pressed the guilt down into the back of his mind as he opened the bathroom door, Persephone having gone back to sleep on Deidre and Hades still there to give him a nasty look before turning away and heading back down the stairs like Damian.

The Batman blinked in his very normal level of self, but shrugged, yawning and turning off the light in the bathroom, grabbing the pillow and going back into the bed given to him for the night until he would wake up with the worst headache ever.

He would feel lousy tomorrow, no doubt, but it would be tempered by something, like it always was when he stayed at the little house in the middle of the forest.


	75. Cocaine OD Numb

_-:-  
I don't think I'll offer you my hand, girl,  
this dirty, clawlike, twitching, unsteady, uncertain,  
hot-cold hand.  
-Franz Kafka._

* * *

**Cocaine OD Numb**-:-

Getting shot in the chest really did hurt. Like, a lot.

This shouldn't have been that much of a surprise to agent West, considering his family and the horror stories he'd heard from heroes come back from other worlds in the middle of some pathetic colony dispute or cleansing of heathens or whatever else it was that the so-called higher beings got in the middle of; or the other stories he heard from the more normal people he surrounded himself with as a sort of personal protection from being totally invisible and yet not all there, either.

It was still kind of pathetic, in his opinion, that he got shot by some guy crawling through tunnels away from other NSA agents _(and Zeta, let Jay never forget that with the way he had a habit of staying close to either Bennett or Lee when they asked for his assistance because the robot got the very correct impression that West didn't care for Zeta getting too close to him—it wasn't personal, it was just that his pacifism reminded West of the hero Dove and that was enough to piss anyone off after more than an hour) _out of a holding house of weapons of mass destruction. A tunnel that ended under a large rock, under a sort of creepy looking Ivy bush and into the midst of a lot of rookie agents assigned to West because how could he screw up catching any militia that got away from the bigger and more intelligent agents that had gone in with guns drawn and heavy Kevlar jackets?

West actually wasn't as surprised at a gun toting yahoo stumbling into their midst as he should have been _(aunt Lian used to reminisce when teaching him target practice about how thieves and paranoids always kept backup exits like rats jumping ship and how she'd sometimes found herself on the wrong end of a long-range rifle because of lack of knowledge of a facility)_ so when he'd warned everyone else with a loud and dangerous boom of "Get Down!" the rookies had gotten out of the way—into bushes, behind trees and unholstering their weapons in the process as they'd been trained—and the gunman had just one target.

The militia man had a big gun that would have put down a bear given the opportunity and he wasn't too bad himself at standing the height of most pro-league basketball players, but he'd been startled at West giving his order for the others to get out of the way, so his aim was a little off when he'd pulled the trigger after West had pulled his twice.

Still, again, it was a big gun and while West had gotten the man's right shoulder and the spot just above his left knee _(pressure points for severe pain and inability to move afterwards, totally against the rules NSA agents were supposed to follow—that would be a head or chest shot—but at least West had taken the guy down before he himself dropped half unconscious to the dirt)_ that would piss Bennett off but, West assumed, would make his family happy with not breaking the 'no killing' rule; the bigger gun usually had a way with landing a better kill shot.

The booming from the gunshots echoed and West was pretty sure he blacked out to the sounds of Lee and Zeta trampling through the woods surrounding the property before the adrenaline and shock set in and out in waves and realized he was breathing blood through his nose and mouth.

* * *

While Bennett and Zeta were allowed to go to the Metro Tower with West _(probably the best place there was to get treatment that anyone had access to—that anyone being Zeta as he'd been given a comm. link and was the one who asked for J'onn's assistance in helping agent West) _it was the agent's family that were allowed in the waiting room while J'onn worked.

Irey had gotten there first and had to be sedated to be kept away from the operating theater when she saw her eldest son on the slab with a hole the size of a healthy red onion to just a quarter of an inch from his heart, skin ash white and blood underneath him pooling so it was making the hair on the back of his neck wet and sticky. She had screamed and prayed and had only stopped trying to get back to him because Barry kept sticking a needle into her arm to stop her from being able to vibrate, his own self planted before the doors of the room _(only a sheepdog waiting for his sheep had that look on his face; body still as can be and eyes a painted wet texture caused by not blinking) _and not making a sound.

Wally and Linda had planted themselves on either side of Irey, still in their bedclothes as they'd been sleeping when they'd gotten the call from Lian, who was pacing the hallway with all the regalia and silence of an Alpha wolf; her hand clutching an arrow pulled out from her quiver and her other hand playing with the feathery ends, tearing pieces of them off and revealing only scraps of her helpless feelings when those pieces fell to the ground.

"How long has it been?" Barry questioned quietly from his spot near the doors, eyes still unblinking and face solemn.

Lian looked at the clock on the wall _(Superman had put it in when some of the electronic ones had kept going out due to some technical malfunctions two weeks before; the face of the clock an old wooden cat wrapped into a comfortable ball, body painted black, eyes bright green, with the ticking hands and numbers serving as dinner, lunch and breakfast in its open maw)_ and sighed, "Six hours."

Wally opened his mouth to try cheering up the mood, seeing as it had been so far in his life that was what he was good for at any moment's notice, but stopped when one of the lights above their heads started flickering and he looked up at it. When it kept going, he tried again, but stopped as it stopped and he had a little prickle start at the base of his neck where his spine centered and it felt like his heart smacked against it.

* * *

_The field Jay woke up in wasn't quite what he was expecting after the pain had faded into vague discomfort that wasn't really there and yet was also spaced somewhere in a little pit just grooved under his heart and laced between the creases of his ribs where muscle resided._

_Blankly, he looked down at his hands and then at himself. Fingers curved in and out, his thumb tracing the bulge of his palm just under his pinky finger, soft but also rough from working with his hands out on the field with the NSA. He was in a pair of shorts that looked more of something that would only fit in on the beach surrounded by tourists that looked equally ridiculous, but he lacked the tan that came with the package._

_He didn't know if he should have been uncomfortable, noting that the shirt he wore was the color of blood, but also Hawaiian; little tropical orange flowers were imprinted along the front as though to outweigh the malefic heart of the horror that was a backward glance at a little while again (oh, the pain)._

_Leaves swished around his head and, caught by surprise in this strange place, he closed his eyes and swatted at them when the wind tossed them through his hair and only settled when he turned around and his browny-gold eyes **('How pretty, most of you family doesn't keep to shades like that. All blue and green gets boring, you know?')** and found himself confronted by a building covered from ground to guardrail with creeper ivy, brown with age or fresh green and just finding themselves. The sun-wherever that was since all Jay could make out were clouds in the sky-casting shadows to make the scene more ornate and heart-striking._

_Wind caught on his ankles, trying to draw him into the open doors gaping at him in the way that a wickedly sculpted gargoyle would look upon a small fox that had crossed its path on the drawing board of the artist that created it; amused in its charm, but believing it to be little more than a parcel of comfort food._

* * *

The machine that kept track of all the beats that a heart can give once it was injured and the body attached to it was damaged continued to beep while J'onn tried to fix the wound of a gun that humans generally couldn't survive, but he couldn't sustain the pressure of blood to fill up what was lost and couldn't reach what was important when the sounds stopped with gentle throbs and turned into blaring. The green of the line on a black screen stopped spiking up and down and curving and shifted flat and did not get back up again.

J'onn's hands stopped moving around in Jay's chest, pointer finger lightly touching the organ as it gave up and head close to the young man's face; death was something that one never actually got used to, but sometimes acceptance was the best thing when there was no way around an outcome.

When the little organ inside Jay's chest was unable to even quiver, the Martian removed his own appendages and made to look to the clock on the wall, pronounce the time of death-

Suction of wet air and tongue against the tube in the far back of the throat made a most unpleasant sound as J'onn looked back to find Jay's hand pulling at the oxygen that had kept him alive before it couldn't anymore, yanking hard and bringing it away from his mouth. Blood splattered onto the already ruined floor and he coughed and hacked blood for a few second before finally resting sight on his doctor of the last few hours.

They were the wrong color, shining pale blue instead of an almost honey-gold Irey was proud of to this day, and J'onn did his best not to gag when Jay's mouth stretched into some awful parody of a grin _(white teeth colored and grimed into deep reds from blood sticking to them, the corners of his mouth bruised from the oxygen tube being pushed in) _and whatever-it-was that was using his body said, with his voice that lacked his character because he wasn't there at the moment, "...Oh, that is unpleasant... What did the kid get shot with, an AK-47?"

When the Martian couldn't bring himself to say anything to this stranger in the boy's body, the said stranger sighed and gave up the cheerful display, looking about the room for something and finding it on the operating table—one of those heart massagers that looked like a long metal pole with a disc a Roman would toss attached to the end. Old fashioned, perhaps, and hardly up to the standards of current medical criteria, but for this situation it was exactly what the stranger needed.

"Before you freak out," it said, rolling West's shoulders and cringing when some blood bubbled up and out the almost-too-blue colored lips, leaking down the underside of Jay's chin like a sad river full of clay for pottery, "I promise that the kid's not dead. Not all the way, yet. I'm stalling him and when I'm done here he'll come back little worse for wear, save for a few months of nightmares and the physical therapy he'll have to go through. You don't get shot like this," a bloody hand pointed and picked at the gaping wound while the other hand _(bruises from an altercation with a convict a few weeks back had made a home near the knuckles) _clutched the paddle for an electric jolt to the heart a bit more carelessly than J'onn would have liked in any other situation but had no say when the metal touched inside to the sleeping organ and the whole of Jay's body convulsed once, twice, thrice, "Without scars and help."

* * *

_The inside of the building was not as cold as Jay had assumed walking inwards. The metal and copper gilded to everything made it seem like it would be, the alabaster and brick shining from the half-light causing radiance where there should have been dank desperation._

_He had never been here, even in his nightmares when his grandfather told him about the few times Batman had allowed him to accompany him on a mission where stepping foot in the place was required, but the pooling sense of dread he expected never came to the ginger. Not even a twinge of uncertainty as he walked along the gallantly striking hallways, skin of his feet smooth to the ground and only making noise when he trotted over rugs he was sure weren't actually supposed to be there **(there were pictures of when the place still held the insane in their maudlin, dancing days state of being; rugs weren't allowed on the principal that a clever psychotic could tear it to pieces and then wind the pieces together to make a hanging knot for themselves or the staff)**._

_Jay hadn't thought that he could feel peaceful in a wicked place like Old Arkham, but since he was pretty sure that he didn't think he'd be the one in his family to die so soon, he shrugged it off and looked about a bit more—the impression of the moment didn't need to last as long as this afterlife._

_"And what makes you think this is the afterlife, Boss?"_

_His feet drew up when his back pulsed and made him turn like a leg-braced dandy from the 1800's at the sound cresting the silence he hadn't been aware was so sturdy until it was breached like a missile of gunfire into a still, winter chilled lake. Eyes like copper dulled and soft, met something unique of its kind **(sui generis, Jay recalled Lee saying once when they'd been on break from chasing Zeta and Rosalie Rowan; the two of them settled in a break room and talking about things they missed from normal life—her family was at the top of that list; he didn't like to go into details of his old life) **and painted such a bright blue, Jay thought for a moment that he was looking at a pair of marble buttons sewn into a paper mannequin's face._

_Pukka red lips tilted up and Jay's fingers twitched inwards towards his callused palms to protect themselves at the sight of the fairly sharp looking canines even though the other teeth before and after them were quite harmless and dull in appearance, "Oh... Sorry, I didn't mean to be a spook witch."_

_Black shielded the sick-white colored skin of the woman that sat in the chair nailed to the ground in front of the reception desk **(sitting down and filling out paperwork to make sure loonies could be admitted was tiring and not a thing to do while standing on your feet)** and made the honey-silk hair sleekly styled to just be without ribbons and braids and ties look affectionate and like the blooms atop an unfurled rosebud. A woman in a 1940's cocktail dress, lounging and looking at the young man (**he was certain that she was older than she looked, even without the knowing in her eyes)**._

_"...I'm... I'm not dead?"_

_"No, not yet. You're gonna live a little longer, if I have anything to say about it, Boss."_

_The flex of Jay's little brother's favorite nickname for Jay made the feeling in the ginger's guts tighten and wrench against his insides the way they probably should have when he walked into the building. It seemed more a mockery than a kindness, but, if he considered the situation, maybe that was to make him feel something and keep him from... from whatever it was that was hanging onto the edges of his peripheral vision and licking the shadows beneath the woman's chair-_

* * *

_Pulse_. _Pulse_. _Pulse_.

**_Beep_**!

**_Beep! Beep-beep-beep!_**

_("...It was nice chatting with you kid. I won't be in Arkham Original for a while because of this, but if you need anything, I might hang around the gardens at Arkham's White Album...")_

The feel of suction inside of his mouth coiled to the roof of Jay's brain so that he felt all wrong on top of the massive pain radiating from his chest and outward. Think of a deer being clipped by a pickup truck, and the heaviness that would come to that body after it hit the ground and that would be about halfway to what the NSA agent was feeling when he opened his eyes and found J'onn saying something to him on the wavelength of "Okay, you're okay... She really did good... You're going to go back to sleep—for just a little, I promise..."

The blue was gone from Jay's eyes when he closed them and the onslaught of sedatives and pain meds came again like a tide of fresh mountain's river water.

Slight and twittered laughter whispered in both of his ears when the heaviness turned to soft dark and he was, again, unconscious.


End file.
